Culture Fusion Meadow and gardens

As the designs for Culture Fusion developed it was obvious the footprint of the building was going to cover almost all the available space. So in order to create a garden space the architects incorporated a first floor garden at the back of the building stretching out over Bradford Beck.

The planting plans for the garden are to create a wildflower meadow and plant a native hedge in the galvanised planters that surround the meadow area.

The planting is underway...
On 16th March 2012 we started the planting.
The planters were filled with a green roof planting medium and with topsoil. The trees planted were a mix of native speices chosen to provide a range of colour, shape and food for the birds and insects (birch, alder, field maple, hawthorn, hazel, rowan and a few dog rose). They will be managed to prevent them getting too big. Some of the planters have been left empty and will be used for vegetables and flowers once the garden space is operational.

The meadow has been seeded into the greenroof seedbed medium, a mixture clay and bark chip, that was provided as part of the building contract.
The area has been divided into 3 planting schemes. A couple of small patches are a mix of low growing wildflowers; the narrow end of the meadow is a mix of grass (70%) and low growing flowers, whilst the wide end is a grass mix with taller growing flowers.

Click here for a Bird Species list and please feel free to include any observation you have made.

A plant species list will be added shortly.

See the gallery for more pictures

Geolocation

53.793015, -1.760093

Conservation Work

Culture Fusion garden (change of plan)

destination will be decided nearer the time

More minibus trouble so we had to abandon our plans to go tree planting at Ogden reservoir. 

Instead we undertook the essential task of removing some of the dandelions from the meadow at Culture Fusion, as well as weeding the growing beds.  

We made a short trip up to the orchard as well to check if the gales had done any damage. We had to replace some of the covering on the apple store but we were pleased to see no damage had been done to the trees. 
 

Culture Fusion and UNR

Thornton Road and Laisteridge Lane

We started the day doing some essential tasks at Culture Fusion. The greenhouses on the meadow had had to be moved for some scaffolding, so these were reassembled and some general gardening done. Meanwhile, in the workshop, a few of us set about separating the bundles of tongue and groove flooring planks which had been given to us as off cuts but had been securely nailed together. No mean feat, but we achieved our goal, measured them and they will just about add up to  make a rather posh floor for the apple store!

After lunch we went to the Urban Nature Reserve to cut pathways and clear litter, including stuff that had been chucked in the pond. It’s looking good. Let’s hope the anti-social behaviour is a thing of the past. 

 

Tool Maintenance Culture Fusion

125 Thornton Road

New Year traditions – a day in the workshop to sharpen and clean the tools. All the sharp edged tools were filed and sharpened. There is still some work to do in completing the inventory and further organisation in the sheds.  I hanker after a wardrobe, or hanging rail of some sort, for the waterproofs. 

 
 

Culture Fusion

125 Thornton Road

A mixed day, split between cutting the first floor meadow and cooking chutney in the kitchen. 

Three builder’s sacks were filled with the arisings from the meadow. Removing this organic matter will help the wildflowers thrive amongst the grasses, and we plan to sow some more wildflowers to increase the floral mix. The vegetation next to the car park was also cut and raked, along with a large amount of litter removed. 

In the kitchen we started with the most important bit – a cake to share. Actually more of a pudding, Apple Sharlotka came out of the oven in time for lunch.  Meanwhile we prepared the apples, veg and spices for apple ‘cheese’, apple and green tomato chutney and a sweet apple chutney with date and a pinch of cayenne. These will all be on sale at Shipley Alternative, Kirkgate Centre on 2nd December.

 Chutney

Culture Fusion garden and workshop

125 Thornton Road

Our teacher: Alison teaching us the principlesOur teacher: Alison teaching us the principlesToday was an opportunity to get the undercroft organised and the planting beds on the first floor ready for this season’s vegetables. An old metal shelf was re assembled, creating surfaces for the pots in the sunlight for part of the day. They will probably need to be tied to fence to hold them up, but they will be useful and I’m glad they escaped a recent trip to the tip. Old seed trays were emptied and the planters were weeded and filled with new compost. 

Lino StudentLino Student

The rest of the day was spent in the art workshop. Alison very kindly provided excellent tuition, inspiration and encouragement to get everyone involved in a lino printing moth masterclass. We are creating images of moths found in our locality, to send to an art exhibition on America. You will be able to see the results of our work in the office area in a few weeks.

PrintsPrints

Tool Maintenance at Culture Fusion

In the workshop at Culture Fusion

Sharpening chiselSharpening chiselAs always we started the year with some tlc for the tools. All the sharp edged tools; scythes, sickles, billhooks, loppers and shears, where taken to the workshop for a clean and a sharpen. This is our opportunity to use the files as well as the sharpening stones to make sure ‘shoulders’ don’t develop on the point which happens if there is continued sharpening at the cutting edge of the blade. 

The bowsaws were checked and the tool box tidied up, ready to go for our tasks in 2017. We even managed to pair up some gloves and find homes for the wellies.  

 

Culture Fusion

125 Thornton Road BD1 2EP

It's that time once again; today we are working at our base in the under-croft area where some of our equipment are stored along with the Culture Fusion Meadow.

Part of the team spent their time assigned to the task of tidying up the store area. With a concerted effort we were able to restore a little order to the under-croft and storage sheds and even managed to assess the condition of some of our tools and equipment.

Meanwhile the other part of the team spent their day working on the meadow removing some of the more dominant species and tending to the raised beds.

Culture Fusion

At BEES base (no minibus today)

15th June 201515th June 2015The task, working at our base today at The Culture Fusion Meadow and in the undercroft where we store some of our equipment. Part of the team spent their time tidying the store area and picking the best pieces from our timber repository to use in the woodwork workshop, where we produce benches, planters and the like, for use on various projects.

The other part of the team spent their day on the meadow removing some of the more dominant species and tending to our vegetables. We also covered a growing frame with plastic sheeting to protect some young tomato plants. Cucumbers, squashes, lettuce, sweetcorn and peas were weeded and thinned out and replanted. The temperature on the meadow must have been in the mid to high twenties celsius. A perfect spot for a picnic which the team partook of at lunch break. There were eight of us today.

Culture Fusion Workshop

Thornton road, BD1 2EP

We always dedicate the first task of the year to tool maintenance and making a start on updating the inventory. 

The sharp edged tools were honed with files and stones in the workshops. Spades got new handles. Bowsaws were fixed and sharpened. Glenford and David had done an absolutely fabulous job of reorganising the sheds over the Christmas period. They continued with this today – it is going to make it so much easier to keep the tools organised and accessible, thank you.