New plants have arrived on Kemp Town seafront grown from cuttings of ‘Crambe maritima’ (sea kale) taken from the Black Rock site and grown at Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst.

The first stage of the project saw plants from the original wildlife site re-located to a new area of beach immediately next to the new boardwalk.

This 600m long boardwalk runs through the entire new wildlife site allowing close range views of the habitat. It will open officially in March 2022

Working with experts from Kew, members of the Black Rock Project Team took cuttings from the plants which were taken to Wakehurst.

The cuttings of ‘Crambe maritima’ (sea kale) were used to propagate and grow young plants by horticulturalists at Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank.

Other plants including ‘Glaucium flavum’ (yellow-horned poppy) and ‘Solanum dulcamara’ (bittersweet) were also grown from seed gathered in Sussex.

After several months, the team from Kew were delighted to hand over almost 1,000 young plants to be transported back to the city and re-planted in the vegetated shingle at Black Rock.

The Black Rock rejuvenation project is part of a large-scale regeneration effort to transform this part of the coastline and enable further development in the future.

For more information go to: https://thelivingcoast.org.uk/new-life-for-the-living-coast