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SOUTHSEA GREEN
PORTSMOUTH
Recent Projects
Project
Themed Plot Allocation Initiative 2025
Themed plots will be allocated to individuals, organisations, and community groups passionate about sharing knowledge through nature. These contributors will curate their spaces with carefully chosen plants, informative displays, and interactive elements, ensuring that each plot is both visually striking and educational. A form of storytelling. Each bed will be dedicated to a specific theme, with accompanying signage, workshops, and interactive elements to enhance public engagement.
Project
Southsea Green Founder's Discovery
Southsea Green began in 2010 as a vision to reconnect people with nature, sustainability, and community. Founded by Sue Stokes and a dedicated team, the initiative grew from a small seafront shop into a thriving community garden within Canoe Lake, transforming an overgrown wasteland with a 500-year history into a flourishing green space. From early ventures in local produce and floristry to Southsea Green, the garden became a hub for gardening, education, and social enterprise.
Project
Celebration Event
Recently, we hosted a celebration event, during which we presented a project overview via an outdoor projector. This occasion served to commemorate the activities of our art group over the summer, providing an opportunity to showcase the creative work produced by our members. It was a highly engaging event, with attendees coming together to celebrate the collective effort, dedication, and commitment to artistic expression.
Project
The Garden of Light
The Garden of Light is an enchanting Christmas event taking place at Foxes Forest in Hilsea as part of the We Shine Portsmouth festival. Designed and curated by Seekers Create, this magical experience invites visitors to explore a series of illuminated gardens. This interactive, family-friendly event combines breathtaking light installations, storytelling, and community engagement to foster creativity and reflection during the festive period.
Project
Action Asylum
This project aims to provide volunteering opportunities for people seeking asylum and local people, to improve the environment through conservation and community efforts. Promote integration and shared learning by connecting people seeking asylum to their local communities and so promote better mental health and wellbeing. Our primary goal is to help those seeking refuge by connecting them with the surrounding community and providing opportunities to work alongside local people through shared skills and interests.
Project
School Workshops
Southsea Green is the perfect place to get involved in outdoor learning and sustainable food production. We provide workshops, encourage volunteering opportunities, host school trips, and promote a healthy and environmentally friendly lifestyle. Learn how to grow, cultivate, and enjoy your own food in the heart of the Southsea community. Experience the love of outdoor learning and fresh, delicious food from the source. We offer classes to schools and encourage all students to commit to quality time inside the garden spent growing and learning about their shared topics.
Project
Seekers Create
Seekers Create is an inspiring team of creatives. Creativity remains at the core of their work at Southsea Green; a place for workshops, walkshops, and interactive trails. They contribute to Southsea Green Association's monthly garden meetings and lead productive discussions. Their community work leads to understanding, vision, and purposeful change. They catalyse transformation using arts as a way to engage, inspire, and connect. Seekers Create hosts school workshops where participants explore their creativity, covering everything from painting to writing, planting, and growing.
Project
Co-op Food
Co-op Food are passionate about connecting our community with the joys of gardening and cooking. Our project is designed to offer a wide range of opportunities to get involved in cultivating vegetables and learning how to cook produce along the way. We offer cookery workshops that teach how to make tasty meals from simple and fresh ingredients, as well as growing workshops that help people of all skill levels learn the art of gardening. We firmly believe that everyone deserves access to fresh, healthy food.
Project
The Interactive Garden
Welcome to the Interactive Garden Project, where our love for gardening blossoms into a shared journey of learning and growth. Our community garden is not just a plot of land; it’s a vibrant classroom without walls, a place where every plant tells a story, and every visit seeds new knowledge. Our garden is interactive, inviting visitors to engage with the environment. The signs and QR codes transform a stroll among the greenery into an educational experience, encouraging exploration and interaction.
Project
The YOU Trust
The YOU Trust is a remarkable charity that has been creatively empowering people to thrive in their communities since 1985. The You Trust works with individuals who have learning disabilities or enduring mental health issues, providing bespoke care, support, therapy, and advice. Their teams live by their values and truly understand the needs of the people they serve. The You Trust operates across Hampshire, Dorset, Somerset, the Isle of Wight, and West Sussex, enriching lives and fostering well-being in our communities.
Project
From Soil to Cloth
Southsea Green is working with a local artist, Alice from Vanderhume, to create a growing space for artistic materials. Alice feels her artwork is an extension of herself and her connection to the Earth. Her work is a proposition for environmental advocation and consumer consciousness; a complete expression of how people must connect back to the meticulous process and inherent meaning behind their clothing and other textiles.
Project
Port 57 Coworking Space
One of our objectives is to bring people together in the community through garden projects, which will lead to meaningful stories and greater knowledge of the natural world. Port 57 creates a ‘growing’ experience by offering a professional place for like-minded individuals to share resources or focus devotedly on essential projects. Members of the Southsea Green Association will use this creative hub for its group meetings and specialised time at individual desks.
Project
Pura Vida Recipes
Pura Vida is a former cafe, restaurant and yoga studio based in Waterlooville, which is now operating as a pop up business providing catering to private events, dinner parties, take away nights, meal prep and cake orders. Our community garden is collaborating with Emma, the founder of Pura Vida, to provide recipes inspired by the fruits and vegetables we produce around Southsea Green. Emma also shares these plant-based recipes in our garden newsletter, Over the Hedge.
Projects Archive
Showcase of Work
Project
Food Portsmouth
Southsea Green and Food Portsmouth come together to promote how good food, growing food, and sharing food can transform lives. Food Portsmouth is an independent organisation that aims to support, develop and promote a fair and positive, sustainable food culture across Portsmouth and Southsea. These actions contribute to making Portsmouth an active member of the Sustainable Food Cities initiative, harnessing sustainable food as a vehicle to drive positive change.
Project
Skillshops
We are grateful to Awards for All and the players of the National Lottery for giving us the opportunity to deliver this project. Our aims and objectives were to develop community, in all aspects, by spreading the word about our organisation, working with partners to strengthen existing relationships and to reach out across the city to promote and share our principles. Our motivation for the project was to grow, not only vegetables for food, but to grow skills and community.
Project
Greenfingers Project
Funded by the Tesco Bags of Help. These fully funded workshops will be held in the Southsea area and should be an introduction to crafts or basic skills, designed to get people started and discover their passion for creativity while making new friends. All crafts considered including gardening, knitting, bicycle maintenance, cooking, etc, so pitch us your passion.
Project
Solent All Stars
Southsea Green completes project work that will help encourage young people to build and improve:
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Team-Working Skills
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Communication
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Confidence
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Community Engagement
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Planning Skills
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Time Management
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Prioritising
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Grit and Determination
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Problem Solving
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Money Management
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Designing
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Presentation Skills
Project
Greenfingers Workshop
Sessions in gardening and crafts were held at Southsea Green Community Garden. These craft workshops provided creative tasks for the public to apply skills learned while participating in the Greenfingers project. Gardeners shared activities about planting vegetables or preparing beds, lessons on sustainability and how to practice sustainable gardening, creating greetings cards and making botanical bookmarks, among many other useful gardening knowledge.
Project
Keep Pompey Green Campaign
The exhibition seemed to be a positive method of sharing concerns and highlighting the beauty of the city, as seen through the eyes of others age 6 or under, or all the way to 100. Everyone was invited to the preview and the Mayor and our MPs were there to see all the fabulous artwork and get on board with keeping our city green. Hosted at Le Cafe Parisien till the New Year.The preview night was a success! So many beautiful artworks by our entrants, sending the message to keep and look after our green-spaces in Pompey.
Project
Social Enterprise Cluster Prospectus 2015/16
Southsea Greenhouse aims to encourage local development and employment and the model is now being extended to other potential community grow-spaces: sharing land, planting trees, teaching others how to cultivate. There is growing membership of 200+ and it encourages a thriving network of painters, knitters, ceramicists and woodcrafters that taps into the amazing resources and talents across the city, and promotes local produce and crafts. We want to change the way people consume, celebrate the creativity of people, and improve what you get from our City.
Project
Southsea Greenhouse Profile Film
This is a short profile film about Southsea Greenhouse, created by Jon Cook, Alex Francis, Ryan Lackenby, Oliver Greenham, Amber Morgan and Jack Smith from The University of Portsmouth. Southsea Green is planning more filmography and photography projects in the future, including an aerial plan of the green spaces and the purpose of each green space. Potential volunteers who have a passion for this creative art are welcome to fill in a volunteer form on our Volunteer Page.
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