Wildflower planting in Christ Church Meadow

Last week a group of volunteers including Christ Church students and staff braved the cold weather to help our Gardens Team plant wildflowers on a rather marshy Christ Church Meadow. Our Head Gardener John James reports on how our intrepid team got on. 

On Wednesday 29 November members of our Gardens Team were joined by staff, students, and Catriona Bass' team and care farming group from Thames Valley Wildflower Meadow Restoration Project to plant around 800 wildflower plants to further enhance the restoration of the floodplain meadow. These plants were grown by Christ Church and Catriona's group from seed collected at Long Mead near Eynsham and other local floodplain meadows.

The species planted include Devil's Bit Scabious, Great Burnet, Ragged Robin, Sneezewort, Pepper Saxifrage and Quaking Grass. We were also able to plant a small number of the locally very scarce Tubular Water Dropwort, which joins some Yellow Flag Iris and Purple Loosestrife in the wettest area of Christ Church Meadow.

Thank you to those who braved the very muddy conditions to help out! Many hands really made light work of it, and we look forward to doing the same thing again next year.

Learn more about our commitment to sustainability at Christ Church.

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From Christ Church to Christchurch: student singers return from New Zealand

After a near decade-long hiatus, an exchange programme taking undergraduate members of Christ Church Cathedral Choir to New Zealand’s Christchurch Cathedral has been re-established. The lucky student singers this year were bass Choral Scholars (or ‘Academical Clerks’) James (Jim) Parmeter, who now enters his third year studying Theology and Religion, and George Blundell, who begins his second year studying German and Italian. We caught up with Jim and George to learn about their Antipodean adventure. 

James Parmeter and George Blundell in front of mountains and a lake
One of the Christ Church team of wildflower planting volunteers

Other Christ Church news

COLLEGE |

From Christ Church to Christchurch: student singers return from New Zealand

After a near decade-long hiatus, an exchange programme taking undergraduate members of Christ Church Cathedral Choir to New Zealand’s Christchurch Cathedral has been re-established. The lucky student singers this year were bass Choral Scholars (or ‘Academical Clerks’) James (Jim) Parmeter, who now enters his third year studying Theology and Religion, and George Blundell, who begins his second year studying German and Italian. We caught up with Jim and George to learn about their Antipodean adventure. 

James Parmeter and George Blundell in front of mountains and a lake