Gardening in the community...

 

In an area that I regularly walk through on my way from where we park the car, to the office, can be found a series of small garden areas looked after by a group called Wanstead Community Gardeners. A quick internet search finds their website too - a delightful, whimsical space where they go into more detail about their organisation (a group essentially for anyone who wants to join) and the areas they look after (far more plentiful than I had imagined - ranging from tree pits to surprisingly substantial garden spaces) and it was one of the latter that caught my attention this morning. 

An area of formerly neglected ground hugging the wall dividing George Green from the busy A12 has been transformed by the group - they use whatever they can get their hands on to form their garden spaces as well as digging flower beds and planting directly into the soil. This one incorporates an old metal water tank as well as a wheelbarrow. They also use reclaimed items to create their signs for the various planting areas - while walking around the area I've seen old childrens slate-boards, upturned spades, and on their website there is a picture of an old edging tool being used in this way! Probably the most commonly used ttem I have spotted is old roofing slates - you can see one of those in the top image. 

As well as the flowers there are also herbs scattered throughout - a good example being the lush sage in the foreground of the second photo, and by way of other edibles are what look to be fruit trees - I may stop for a better look at some stage as I pass by but what do we think (photo above) - apples? Cherries perhaps? 

The planting used to continue along the wall where the fenced are you can see in the background of the last photo there is - it appears though that since that area has been fenced off, the community gardeners no longer have access, which is a shame - that space looked far better with their input! 

If you want to know more about the Community Gardeners, have a look at their website HERE - sadly the blog doesn't seem to have been updated in recent years, but there is some nice info about what they've got up to previously, at least! 

Robyn