Spring has come and gone in a flutter of butterfly wings. We have had an incredibly lovely, busy one – a big chunk of our work taking place in the creation of community gardens – something we are passionate about.
So many of you reading this are now fully committed to getting involved in doing your own bit a to help address the climate and ecological crisis. Whilst it’s fantastic that we are getting so many calls to create wildflower meadows, equally welcome is a simple commitment for you to change your lawn mowing regimes. For, as we re-wild our gardens, we re-wild ourselves. See below a lovely little article I wrote under my Eco-Worrier alter-ego, for last week’s Hamstead & Highgate express.
In April, we designed and planted a wildlife friendly garden in a large block of flats, run as a co-op, in Tower Hamlets. Whilst this area is outside of our normal patch, we were so thrilled to find how excited residents were about the prospect of taking out huge beds of dense, light-absorbing bamboo, and letting us replace these with an enchanting selection of pollinator plants. The grounds are now alive with an abundance of oh so pretty, bio-rich plants of all colours and textures. According to the TRA, the grounds are now also full of residents sitting down and enjoying the space, chatting with each other, meeting for the first time…having a go at growing veg, learning about plants, cultivating what they previously thought of as ‘weeds.’ As we re-wild our housing estates and public spaces…we re-wild ourselves. Pictures later in summer.
We also enjoy getting stuck in with garden makeovers. We recently helped re-design and plant a lovely garden in Islington. We soo loved the colour palette – very venetian… from saffron to claret. All unified with white plants. And of course, everything v wildlife friendly.
If you are a NHS worker and need some FREE advise on your garden. Get in touch. We recently helped a couple of very overworked, tired doctors with their gardens. We are very happy to offer free labour and advice.
Creating wildflower meadows is something very close to our hearts. We have recently created 3 new wildflower meadows in the Camden area. For a block of flats in NW3 with a larger budget, we encouraged them to use wildflower turf from Pictorial Meadows. The result is very florific.
For our community wildflower meadows we used Lindum Turf, which we think is really fantastic. Lindum turf is grown on a biodegradable felt matting, as opposed to plastic. It really ticks all the boxes! We had great fun creating a meadow with students at Parliament Hill girls school, and have even created a ‘pop-up’ meadow in downtown NW5.
Talking about community gardening, we always feel very proud to put our community volunteer hats on and join in the fun with Transition Kentish Town @Tkentishtown and @ThinkDoCamden, thinkanddocamden.org.uk
The Camden Forest project, part of Think and Do, is a really interesting one. The project’s aim is to get 2,025 trees planted in the borough of Camden by 2,025. Thanks to the free tree whips from our partner tcv.org.uk, we now have over 1,000 new trees growing in our borough. See their locations on: camdenforest2025.wordpress.com. If you would like to join the project, or receive a free tree whip, get in touch.
We have given away trees to lots of schools, including Parliament Hill girls school where the students decided to create a ‘Feminist orchard.’ This orchard will be named after un-sung feminists from through-out history.
We have lots of exciting projects in the pipeline, including the possibility of transforming a whole street of front gardens into a wildlife friendly, bucolic block. We say, lets turn yellow lines into BEE lines!
We are always happy to pop into see any new gardens or projects, no matter how big or small. Until next time, put away that lawnmower, join the Camden Forest project, say no to any chemical inputs, and enjoy weeds… Remember a weed is a flower too!
