About the Planting Scheme

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This page chronicles the Friends of Hove Lagoon Planting Scheme. Read about the plants featured in the Scheme.

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Getting the plants in! Video by Dan Boorman, June 2021

Key personnel

Tom Stear, FoHL co-project leader and committee member
Chris Flint, FoHL co-project leader
Nicholas Dexter, landscape designer, creator of the Phase 1 layout, and consultant to the Planting Scheme project
Dan Boorman, landscaping contractor

How it all began

The Hove Lagoon Planting Scheme was conceived at much the same time as Friends of Hove Lagoon, back in 2016. The Friends felt that the grassy areas of Hove Lagoon were neglected, and that it would be great to bring a flowery focus to the area. The idea began to take shape in 2017 after a donor kindly offered to provide some tulips for the Southern banks – and it was suggested that FoHL might consider something a little more ambitious!

Working group, and initial plans

A Planting Scheme working group was forged, and early ideas were that the Scheme should have a sea theme, and possibly some raised beds.In 2017 Chris Flint took the lead as Planting Scheme co-ordinator. Nick Dexter, a local landscape designer, offered his services for free, and he began drafting plans. Nick’s suggestions included seaside-resilient, low level planting. An early design was costed out and found to be too ambitious financially, so it was decided that a simpler plan would be needed, and that this would be regarded as ‘Phase 1’ of the Scheme. Read more about the design on Nick Dexter’s website.

The original designs for the Scheme covered much of the area around the Lagoon. But in 2018, following the first Lagoonfest, FoHL realised that the planting would need to be scaled down to allow room for Lagoonfest and other events to take place.

Fundraising

From 2019 onwards FoHL got serious with fundraising efforts for the Planting Scheme. One of the original purposes of Lagoonfest was to raise money for plants, and local businesses expressed their enthusiasm for the Scheme by sponsoring the festival in 2018 and 2019. Read more about that on our Events page. Grants from the West Hove Forum, and from Brighton & Hove Council were also secured. The second Lagoonfest was very successful and raised enough money that FoHL were eventually able to obtain matched funding from the Sussex Community Foundation Rampion fund.

Plants at the south pavilion, waiting to go into the ground

Finalising the designs

In 2020 it was decided that two of the quadrants around the art deco pavilions at the Western end of the Lagoon would be planted with a diverse selection of seaside-tolerant plants. Nick Dexter’s new designs were made available for a public consultation via the FoHL emailing list and social media. Following some final adjustments, plans were made to prepare the soil in Spring 2021, and get those plants finally into the ground!

Getting the plants in!

Fast forward to June 2021, and Chris, Nick, Tom Stear (a keen gardener, and currently a FoHL committee member), local landscape designer Dan Boorman, and a sturdy band of volunteers ploughed away the existing turf, raked in quantities of compost, and planted out some 1500 plants. On the second day of planting we were joined by sixth form students from Brighton College.

The weather was extremely warm, and there was about two weeks’ delay between planting and the installation of water taps to the two pavilions. So volunteers met regularly to carry and dispense water kindly provided by Lagoon Watersports and the Gather Inn pub. Southern Water provided the water supply and taps, and Mittens the plumbers installed the taps.

Maintenance

Wet weather followed the dry spell, and the plants really began to flourish! FoHL has received so many kind and appreciative comments about the gardens, and we feel the Scheme has been a great success. We are still holding occasional volunteer mornings to carry out weeding and watering of the plots – if you would like to get involved please contact us here.

A celebration!

On October 1st, 2021 an event was held at the Gather Inn to celebrate the completion of the Planting Scheme and to hold the 2021 Raffle Draw. It was a thank-you to the committee, all the gardening, Lagoonfest, and Raffle volunteers and their contributors. The VIP Guest was Keith Hollis, the Chair of the Rampion Community Benefit Panel and Chair of Trustees for the Sussex Community Foundation, who complimented FoHL on the Planting Scheme and mentioned how professional the funding application was.