Historic Floodplains Important Freshwater Landscapes Wetland Opportunity Areas

GroWet

Habitat Project Species Project

Saving rare and endangered wetland plants

Local people helped us to protect historic wetland and freshwater habitats by growing rare wetland plants at home, at school and in community centres.

GroWet Team

Working together to conserve historic wetlands and freshwater wildlife

Research shows that in the lowlands, wetland plant diversity is declining at approximately 1% every year. These declines are even more severe for endangered and uncommon species.

GroWet ran between 2022 – 2026 in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and the Irfon catchment in mid-Wales. The project gave plants a helping hand, enabling them to reach good sites, increase their abundance and distribution, and most importantly reduce their risk of extinction.

GroWet volunteers

We’re brought together local communities, schools, horticulturalists and other project partners to:

1 Propagate some of the UK's most endangered wetland plants

including species like Common Cotton-grass, Ragged-robin and Greater Water-parsnip, which were once plentiful but are now in rapid decline.

2 Educate and engage with people

including people living in urban areas with little access to nature, to grow endangered wetland plants at home.

3 Introduce the propagated plants to high quality freshwater and wetland habitats

where they would once have been plentiful and where we believe they can thrive again.

GroWet Greenhouse Volunteering (now closed)

A huge thank you to all of the volunteers, schools and community groups who supported the project in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire.

We are also extremely grateful to the organisations who helped to make the project possible, including the Waddesdon Estate, ODS, Chiltern Rangers and Lindengate, who we grew the majority of our plants with.

We are no longer recruiting volunteers for the project, but you can find our volunteer opportunities here.

silly greenhouse pic

GroWet in the Irfon catchment

GroWet ran in the River Irfon catchment in mid-Wales as part of our River Irfon Catchment Project, which is funded by the Nature Networks Programme and delivered by the Heritage Fund, on behalf of the Welsh Government. 

We believe it is important for people to feel connected to nature and we want to help facilitate this connection for people that may have difficulty accessing green spaces. For this reason, GroWet in the Irfon Catchment worked with Disabled Adult Day Centres across the catchment and the wider Powys area to bring nature to people who may otherwise not have the chance to access it.

We’ve had some wonderful feedback informing us of how those involved have found the experience of growing wetland plants to be highly enjoyable and rewarding. 

We are extremely grateful to all of the volunteers who supported the project, and the funders who helped to make the project possible.

Kirsty Allwood (River Irfon Habitat and Species Officer) handing out seed packs to two volunteers.

About the GroWet plants

Here are the wetland plants we worked on during the project. Follow the links to learn about each species’ ecology and propagation.

Frogbit

Frogbit
Hydrocharis morsus-ranae

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water-parsnip

Greater Water-parsnip
Sium latifolium

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Photo of Lesser Spearwort, a plant with shiny yellow flowers and spear-shaped leaves.

Lesser Spearwort
Ranunculus flammula

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Ragged Robin

Ragged-robin
Silene flos-cuculi

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Tubular water dropwort

Tubular Water-dropwort
Oenanthe fistulosa

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Water-violet

Water-violet
Hottonia palustris

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