Andrea Ku: Pennywort Case Study

This talk is centred on the community canoe group who litter pick the Leeds–Liverpool Canal and remove invasive non-native floating pennywort.

This plant forms dense mats that choke waterways, block light, reduce oxygen and smother habitat. It’s a classic “bad news” climate-and-disturbance story – until you lift it out of the water and change what happens next.

The group reframes pennywort as a problem-to-resource case study: they collect around 10kg each month, then compost it responsibly (sealed transport, no fragment escape) by balancing it with dry “browns” such as cardboard, straw or woodchip. Because pennywort is soft, leafy and nitrogen-rich, it breaks down quickly into dark, crumbly compost. That compost is then used on the raised beds throughout the year – spring top-dressing, summer mulching to hold moisture during heatwaves, autumn soil rebuilding, and winter protection to feed the soil-helping community food growing become more resilient to hotter, drier summers and wetter winters.

The message is simple and hopeful: even things with difficult origins can be turned into something that supports climate-ready food growing and biodiversity.

Garden Festival is a day of talks and activities celebrating gardens, growing and nature! We’ll be discussing right to grow, composting food waste, inclusive gardening, seed saving and queer ecology. See full programme at openeye.org.uk.

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