Friends of Bitterne Station was started in Spring 2021 by a small group of volunteers wanting to add a few plants to some scrubland by the station to make it a nicer place for people and wildlife.

Three Rivers Railway were keen to have a group adopt the station, the group grew and went from monthly meet ups very quickly to being there most Sunday mornings, with many of us keen to regularly meet and do something positive after being confined by the pandemic.

We are a diverse and inclusive group with an emphasis on community, some of our volunteers are less interested in gardening so come for a chat and to litter pick. We sometimes have lunch together as a group at the station, with Ziggy our founder and partner John providing homemade soup, or maybe Roberta bringing pasta, often sat on the Friendship bench! We are very keen to encourage wildlife and biodiversity at the station, we have a bug hotel, piles of dead wood and we are encouraging plenty of flowers for insects and pollinators. We also want the community to feel able to help themselves to herbs from our herb bed and plants and seeds from our plant and seed swap area.

The local community has been amazing donating so many of the plants that now make the station look so lovely. Children from Bitterne Manor school came and helped with planting bulbs in some of our planters.

We have planted some small fruit trees we had donated by Treemendous, and also sown wildflowers, we want to support the life cycles of different insects so we are trying to provide suitable plants and habitats for them. We sought advice from Phil Budd from Southampton Natural history society about the plants already around, what was worth keeping and what had little value to wildlife, like Snowberry which we had a lot of but we learnt is better replaced with other things.

We've all had different gardening knowledge so it has been great learning from each other and from people who have been kind enough to come and advise us.

We have also spread our gardening up to the charity and recycling bins further away from the station, where there has been a fly-tipping problem, we have planted up donated bathtubs and the bins have been moved for us to paint the ground with positive messages and wildlife designs. Even since the bathtub planters have been there the amount of fly-tipping has reduced. 

In Summer 2022 we were entered for Stations in Bloom and we received a Gold award for achieving amazing things in our first year. We also became part of Wilder Southampton, which gives further connection with other similar groups across the city wanting to do similar things and make unloved patches of the city beautiful and more biodiverse.

In March 2023 we were given access to the old ticket office which we are gradually decorating and furnishing and using for community events such as our mosaic project, art displays, pantry, and other community workshops and events. It also gives the added bonus of a kettle and somewhere to shelter if it rains while we're gardening!

2023 was the 2nd time we've been part of the Bitterne Park plant and seed swap trail where people can bring their excess seedlings and seeds or take plants and seeds, a great way to meet more people and any excess plants we can put into the borders at the station. Our lovely sunflowers last year were from donations at the plant and seed swap.

In early summer 2023 we were excited to announce that thanks to the support of The Customer and Communities Improvement Fund (CCIF) of South Western Railway, that we would be working for 10 months with local artist Joanna Rose Tidey Artist to create an art trail, "Nature all around us", across our community, featuring 10 colourful animals from our local wildlife. 

It is so exciting to see how the planting matures and to see more butterflies and insects appear as well as seeing the community enjoying the space.