Pictorial Meadow sowing underway for Tower of London Jubilee ‘Superbloom’

Over 20 million Pictorial Meadow’s seeds will be sown in the moat at the Tower of London over the course of the next week, as work continues apace to create a spectacular floral ‘Superbloom’ display to celebrate Her Majesty The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee this Summer.

With favourable weather, the bloom will begin to flourish at the beginning of June, encircling the Tower with a vibrant field of flowers and creating a welcoming new habitat for wildlife in the urban landscape of the City of London.

The ‘Superbloom’ will then evolve throughout the Summer, becoming a haven for pollinators and creating a stunning spectacle of changing colours and patterns, flowering until September.

The seeds being sown by the Pictorial Meadows team this week have been carefully selected by Nigel Dunnett, Professor of Planting Design and Urban Horticulture at the University of Sheffield, who is the lead horticulturist on the project and has designed the planting scheme.

These mixes feature different varieties of many familiar wildflowers, such as red Poppies, yellow Corn Marigolds, and blue Cornflowers.

In addition to the wildflowers, a range of garden plants are also included in the seed mixes to heighten the colour effects and to extend the season of flowering to cover the whole summer, before and after the wildflowers reach their peak.

Sunflowers, Cosmos and Rudbeckias will flower into early autumn, and the snapdragon-like Fairy Toadflax, and Baby’s Breath will bloom at the very beginning of the summer.

Taller plants will create a wonderful, totally immersive experience for visitors, and the millions of simple, uncomplicated flowers in the Superbloom will be a wonderful source of food and nectar for pollinators.

Extensive landscape work has already taken place in the Tower’s moat to prepare for the display. Winding paths, designed by the project’s landscape architects, Grant Associates, have been installed and are being lined with woven willow edging.

The ‘Superbloom’ soil has been carefully calibrated by soil specialists, Tim O’Hare Associates, to support the growth of a continuously evolving floral display.

The seeds have been provided by Pictorial Meadows– part of the not-for-profit Green Estate CIC, social enterprise based in Sheffield.

A team from Pictorial Meadows will be travelling from Sheffield to sow the seeds in the moat, with Professor Dunnett supervising throughout the process.

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