Come hear from our good friend, Maciej Podyma, who has led and scaled up a Polish wildflowering enterprise at our Scouse Flowerhouse AGM.

From Liverpool to Warsaw: And the links to Poland’s Urban Meadow Revolution

by Richard Scott, National Wildflower Centre @ Eden Project & Co-Founder/Director of Scouse Flowerhouse

In 2012, I was invited to the University of Warsaw to present alongside Prof Kathrin Kiehl from Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences about Landlife's pioneering work with urban wildflower projects. This presentation was hosted alongside creative ecology project work displayed on the railings of a park close to the university campus. The entire event was organised by Prof. Wiktor Kotowski, a visionary at the University of Warsaw who, at the time, was a Board Member of the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) Europe. Wiktor had first encountered our work in Liverpool back in 2000, when the SER World Conference visited the city and witnessed the opening of the National Wildflower Centre.We presented to a packed hall of >200 people, including university students, lecturers, local authority representatives, municipal planners, and passionate ecological restoration advocates. It was a remarkably positive exchange. We explained that even in the UK, this style of creative conservation was originally considered unusual and faced resistance, reassuring the Polish audience that they were in a very similar position to where we were placed on the day I spoke. During the visit, we were also introduced to Maciej and Karol Podyma, who had begun collaborating with the early Polish native wildflower seed pioneer, Prof. Łukasz Łuczaj. Most rewarding of all, we were taken to see their early urban wildflower project work along the floodplains of the Vistula River. Standing on the riverbanks in Warsaw, we were absolutely delighted to learn that the young instigators—who would go on to found the highly influential Fundacja Łąka (The Meadow Foundation) in 2014—were using our own creative conservation manual, Wildflowers Work, as their manual. Three years later, in Liverpool we showed them local projects and provided technical advice on wildflower seed production to fuel the exciting growth of their foundation. We were also able to help connect them with Scandinavian funders, securing EEA and Norway Grants through the Active Citizens Fund which helped solidify their long-term operations.

Today, Fundacja Łąka has grown into an absolute powerhouse of urban biodiversity. From those early, humble plots along the Vistula, the foundation has scaled up massively, planting over 1.5 million square metres of native wildflower meadows across dozens of major Polish cities—including Kraków, Wrocław, and Białystok. Operating as a highly successful social enterprise, they supply custom-designed native seed mixes, run massive public education campaigns, and advise corporate partners on sustainable land management. Maciej’s pioneering environmental work even earned him a prestigious Fellowship with Ashoka, the global network of leading social innovators.

Our collaborative journey comes full circle this year. Due to unforeseen visa complications, Maciej was unfortunately unable to join us in Liverpool for the Northern Flowerhouse Assembly at Lutyens Crypt on June 18th. However, the fact that Maciej will be returning to Liverpool this coming September to attend the Scouse Flowerhouse AGM will extend the amount of time people have to listen to him here, and we hope to work with Merseyside Polonia to also explore and strengthen cultural links as well as organise a visit to the Herbarium, at the request of Maciej's wife, Nathalia, who has strong botanical knowledge and research interests. They will be returning, of course, to share something of their remarkable journey—one that has seen them scale up from those early riverside sowings to transforming urban green spaces across a vast range of Polish municipalities. Seeing a philosophy born in Liverpool now bloomings across Poland's cities is very special. So we look forward to welcoming a Polish take on meadow care back to our own streets and meadows to help us think about how we can provide employment opportunities, quality training and apprenticeships and start a new, sustainable chapter of operations with our 200 members of Scouse Flowerhouse. We hope you can be part of it!

Description supplied by the event organiser.