An art forage on West Worthing beach

An opportunity to explore and appreciate the wild vegetation growing on the shingle beach at Worthing. We will use all our senses to focus on the structure, beauty and detail of these unique plants at the start of the flowering season.

Using art and poetry to visualise and express our love and interest in this special environment, we will draw and/or write, collating the results into a book while we are still at the beach.

Vegetated shingle habitats are special and globally rare because most coastal shingle is too mobile to support plant communities. On Worthing and Goring beach we are lucky to have many plants which are both beautiful and support invertebrates: these include Sea Kale, Yellow-Horned Poppy, Viper’s Bugloss, Sea Bindweed and others. By making art about them we hope to help protect them.

The large leaves of sea kale are cupped to make the rainwater run down to the stalk and root and waxy which means that the stomata are buried to reduce evaporation. It has a very long tap root that can go deep to find water. The perfumed nectar-rich flowers are great for attracting pollinating insects.

Dates & Times

3 May, 11am—1pm

West Parade, Worthing BN11 5EB. Meet at Waterwise Garden, just west of Waterwise playground

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