Evie

On Sunday 23rd July, a celebration event was held at The Hive in Ipswich to celebrate the transformation of the outdoor space at the back of the building into a haven for wildlife and a welcoming space that users of The Hive and members of the local community can enjoy.

The Hive is a vibrant, multi-functional hub supporting the community in and around Norwich Road.  Suffolk Wildlife Trust has been working with members of The Hive community as part of the Nextdoor Nature project, funded by National Lottery Heritage Fund, to share, develop and put into practice their ideas for the outdoor space.  Ideas have included space for nature, raised beds for food-growing, a performance space and an outdoor pizza oven.  Over the last year, members of the community have cleared rubbish, planted wildlife-friendly plants, created a bug hotel and built the pizza oven.

The celebration event was an opportunity to welcome members of the local community, including those involved in transforming the space and others experiencing the garden for the first time, to see the transformation for themselves and enjoy an afternoon of performance and activities.  The performance space hosted a line-up of singers, musicians, a DJ and poetry written and performed by two members of the Youth Board.  A local community artist supported people in printing cotton bunting.  I helped adults and children to make willow crowns and to decorate them with ribbons and natural materials.  Pizza cooked in the outdoor pizza oven was appreciated by everyone!

Henry

I really enjoyed the next-door nature event. It was all about bringing a community together to celebrate nature. There was delicious pizza on the go and great performances to watch and listen to. There was also a craft space to make nature-crowns and a place to help make a bug hotel. This all makes people feel more involved with their natural surroundings. 

I read my poems out to everyone there. The poems I read were called, ‘Water’s Journey’ and ‘Just a Tree’. I was privileged to recite both of my poems personally to the Mayor of Ipswich too. 

Events like this are important because they express how important nature is. They also make you realise that you can fit so much in a small-garden space, so if you have a small garden, you can still do so much to help nature. 

James

I went to the nextdoor nature celebration event on the 23rd of July, for celebrating a project that ran throughout The Wildlife Trusts in 2023 and has been successful nationwide, and within our own county as well. So what better than to celebrate it? 

The celebration took place in The HIVE in Ipswich, which is a small, friendly community space that blossoms in a road of low natural and physical beauty, that has a small-ish building, with a small garden space out the back. Still, it is a place that strengthens the road’s community, celebrates and supports a diversity of people and culture. 

It was mostly outside in The HIVE’s small garden, that has been managed to support the community and wildlife, such as having a stag beetle stack and an insect hotel alongside a stage for performance. This I feel is what makes a community space, when it is made to benefit both a community of humanity, and the natural world. 

I weaved a willow crown with leaves tucked in, from an activity ran by another youth board member, Listened to some amazing singing, and then nature-related poetry from another fellow youth board member, before performing some myself. I feel these creative sharing spaces are so amazing because it is chance to hear how skilled people from different walks of life are. And of course, I ate pizza out the recent pizza oven that had been installed! 

As I have said in the third paragraph, the world can be a brighter place when local community spaces like this exist, for everyone to be themselves and share themselves in a space that is green and natural.  This links back to what nextdoor nature is for, to preserve the natural world in a way that benefits nature and us too, as it really does, when people are enabled to access it.  

Water’s Journey, Henry

This poem starts at the river, 

The water is trickling by, 

The butterflies are dancing. 

This water flows to the sea, 

Where the coral life is thriving. 

Colourful fish swim by, 

The coral waves and flaps with the movement of the water. 

Back near the river, 

A crisp packet is thrown out of a fast car. 

This plastic lasts for years, 

It is blown into the river. 

This crisp packet flows down the river. 

The water is getting browner, 

Pollution is destroying life in the river. 

This crisp packet floats down the river into the sea, 

Where it meets lots of other plastic species. 

This plastic floats wherever it wants to go, 

Gulls get stuck in the wiring, 

Turtles die from eating it. 

The water is getting hotter, 

The coral is bleaching, 

The coral is dead. 

This is now a graveyard of dead sea life. 

This plastic floats to China, 

Where it meets a boat. 

This boat has a huge net behind it. 

It acts as a void, 

Damaging the marine wildlife, 

Capturing life. 

This is overfishing. 

The plastic floats a bit further to meet another ship. 

This ship has another net. 

This ship is capturing sharks. 

The harmless sharks are scooped up. 

Fins cut off. 

Chucked back into the ocean, 

Where they die of hunger. 

This plastic is still there, 

A decade later. 

Still bobbing along, 

Killing everything in its path. 

Due to climate change, 

It follows a flood. 

This flood drowns people and destroys their homes. 

This crisp packet floats into a flooded garage. 

It rests on a windscreen of a  

broken-down fast car. 

Just a Tree, Henry

In the Year of 1650, I was planted by a Jay. It covered me with moss and then it hopped away.

Then in Spring I started to grow under the canopy, of many enormous oak trees, much bigger than me.

It took me years to grow so tall, but I became majestic.

I spread my branches far and wide, my bark grew gnarled and thick.

Overtime, the many trees that had been all around, either fell in thunderstorms or were cut down to the ground.

Some of us were allowed to stay and that included me.

The farmer planted in-between us. I was now a hedgerow tree.

The hedge was used for nests and food, it grew thorns, fruit and blossom.

Every year it grew thicker, with scrubby grasses at the bottom.

When the farmer didn’t use his horses any more, the hedgerow just got in his way and was taken to the floor.

Proud, but alone in the field I stood, upon the open land.

Then one day came a man with a hard hat and a clipboard in his hand.

“This one’s got to go,” he said, “it’s completely in the way.”

He sprayed a big red cross on me, and then he walked away.

The giant, James

Where emerald blades meet river concrete, 

And concrete meets the soft brown dirt, 

There's a giant. 

One that stood its decades, 

Producing sweet-smelling conkers, 

Smiles of woolly-coated children collecting them, 

As its colourful autumn leaves kiss goodbye. 

The protection I felt from it, 

A trunk yet stronger than a stag's horns in battle, 

Old enough to watch the school build. 

Leaves lush, and welcoming the winged above, 

And so brave, through every season this tree thrives, 

Where emerald blades meet river concrete, 

And concrete meets the soft brown dirt, 

There’s a giant 

Progress, James

I stand among towering, darkening oaks, 

the last few in the area, 

Their greatness oblivious to humanity, 

And I ponder their darkened stories. 

Through years they have thrived, produced, housed, breathed 

and then broke, through experience, 

Eyes that watched their family around them helplessly stroked by chainsaw, until 

the rise of the economy destroying their rich soils, sabotaging their land, until 

the ground is a permanent hard, cold grey, until 

the grey rises up with buildings, to skyscrapers, in minutes, 

and then 

Society wants more, the population grows, the demand grows higher, until 

nature is at threat, until 

the threat rises up to endangered, to extinction, in seconds, 

and then 

Here comes the chainsaw, 

For these stories and lives these gods wield, 

Are never enough for us. They face the consequences of us.