Project:

Lansdowne Estate Meadow

We design our Pictorial Meadows annual seed mixes to be successful across a range of soil types, making them well suited to gardens and urban settings. Nowhere was the stunning flower-power of these unique mixes on better display than the Lansdowne Estate in Sheffield.

The Lansdowne Estate is a city centre housing estate home to almost 600 households. The tenants and residents of the estate approached Pictorial Meadows looking to introduce meadows to the area, having taken responsibility for an area of outdoor space from the local council. The quickness and ease of a seed-sown annual meadow made it the perfect choice.

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The area picked to sow the first meadow was a large area of amenity grass, around a thousand square meters. The location was selected because of its high visibility to both residents and passers-by and is surrounded by several benches providing ample opportunity for the community to sit and enjoy the meadow. Our 'Classic' annual mix was chosen as this is not only a fast and reliable meadow; it offers the highest amount of successional colour changes throughout the year. It was often commented that every time a resident went down to view the meadow, it looked completely different.

Whilst hand-sowing is suitable for smaller meadow locations, due to the size of the plot, the tenants and residents of the Lansdowne Estate commissioned our specialist teams to prepare the ground and sow the meadow. After preparing the site, our team returned a couple of weeks later and sowed the meadow. It wasn't long after that the first shoots started to appear.

"Our meadow has made such a difference to the local community, having something so beautiful and unique on our doorstep has helped to build pride in the area. Now we have somewhere to sit and contemplate nature quietly, it has been a great support for the mental wellbeing of residents" says Beth, Chair of the Lansdowne Tenants and Residents Association.