26th of April, 2026

CUE's first City Nature Challenge and we were excited to explore the areas around our beds to hunt for wild plant and animal species!

The CrUE gathered on sunny Sunday afternoon for the challenge. After a quick intro in plant identification from Shu, we dashed off to document as many species on the iNaturalist app as possible.

After an hour, we met up for a cuppa and we shared what we had found. We were delighted with all the different species around and that some were able to capture ladybirds, aphids, spiders and bees close by! Prizes were awarded to the person who found the most species (35!) and to those who found the plants on our 'treasure hunt' list. 

Thank you to everyone who came as we really enjoyed taking the time to slow down and notice all wild nature around us. A special thank you to Shu for organising our involvement in citizen science.

We are continuing our CUE-mmunity gardening gatherings scheduled for the third Sunday of the month. 

We will gather to garden, catch up and discuss our current projects at the Central Hall raised bed and the 'Grassy Bit' between Central Hall and the Wave. 

We are always keen to hear from people who use these spaces and who might have any ideas or feedback. If you or anyone you know that might be interested, please come along or get in touch with us at hello@coventryuraneden.co.uk. 

Hope to see you there! 

29th of March, 2026

Our exciting working session last week was a true example of a community coming together to co-create a green space in the city centre. Linda shares more details below.

On Tuesday several groups came together to clear the 'grassy bit' opposite The Wave and adjacent to Central Hall. These were namely Groundwork (West Midlands), CVLife, Chat Central, Coffee Tots and CUE. Volunteers and parents with their children came together to help.

The grass and weeds were cleared from half the plot, weed membrane and chipped bark were put down on about a third of the space. It was a real community in action afternoon and great fun despite the cold wind.

We will have a follow up session next Tuesday the 31st at 1pm.  We look forward to creating an improved green space for the local community to enjoy, especially as the weather gets warmer.

Thank you to everyone who came, we really appreciated having you there. A  special thanks to Jayan, Catherine and Celia for meeting with us and coming together to make this happen.

During the winter months we continued our monthly sessions. We concentrated on litter picking which we are pleased to report has been less of a task recently. We also carried out housekeeping jobs, cleaning and oiling tools, putting up shelving and tidying and reorganising our store.

With the advent of Spring our March session focussed on pruning, clearing and weeding the raised bed outside Central Hall. We checked the planters on the railings and our bench planter, pruned and weeded and took stock.

There are a few gaps to fill in the planters whereas we probably will need to thin out some of the plants in the raised bed which have done so well since we planted in May 2023.

We were delighted to see some of our daffodil bulbs planted in November were flowering beautifully such a positive sign of spring ! Thank you to everyone who braved the wind, rain and cold to keep these spaces looking lovely! Also thank you to Roz for the photos.

We are starting our new CUE-mmunity gardening gatherings scheduled for the third Sunday of the month (no meet up in December). We will gather to garden, catch up and discuss our current and future projects.

We hired a minibus for the CUE team and our lovely supporters to go to John's Garden in Staffordshire. 

John's Garden is adjacent to Ashford Nurseries Kingswinford and is open on Saturdays throughout the year. It covers 8 acres of beautiful seasonal gardens including a wilderness garden by the Worcestershire and Staffordshire canal. John Massey is a Chelsea gold medallist and lifelong horticulturalist and it is his private garden. He opens it to raise money for various charities. We had a wonderful relaxing and interesting day and were able to ask John questions relating to our own gardens and CUE projects.

Thank you to Donald and Angela for the photos.

We had a tour of the garden and enjoyed learning about some of their different planting methods and also their amazing composting system. We were very inspired by their work.

We are so proud of our first project. Angela updates us on the day.

26th of May, 2024

After almost two years since our launch, we are so happy with the result. Firstly, we are grateful to the StreetPride team for leaving us with a clean slate to work on. They kindly cleared the previous shrubs and refilled the bed with soil.

We started by clearing some weeds that had sprouted and also got rid of some seed pods. We then started placing the plants that we bought from the wonderful Russell's Garden Centre where we wanted them and then it was plant, plant, plant! We spent the best part of the day working away and enjoying getting our hands dirty. We treated ourselves to a yummy dosa at Chaat GPT Indian Street Food next to the bed for lunch. We were incredibly lucky to finish when we did as it started bucketing down just after we took a group photo!

We look forward to seeing the plants settle in and grow. Thank you so much to everyone who came and showed interest in our work. This is what CUE is all about.