I am nominating Myatt’s Fields Park and its inspirational horticulture manager, Tony Danford. Tony has transformed the park in the past five years by drawing up and implementing plans for 30% of the park to be planted and maintained for wildlife. He has created swathes of biodiverse planting from Knatchbull Road gate to the football pitch, supported volunteer John Stocker to create a new laid hedge, created dead hedge areas for composting park waste (meaning that no waste has to be taken away now) and created new mowing regimes that support biodiversity. He is a leader in Lambeth for creating new ways to maintain parks, and is tireless in his efforts to create the best possible space for wildlife and people on a very limited budget. The park now demonstrates that it is possible to create beautiful flower displays while supporting biodiversity, and to do this in a way that conserves water and can be implemented on low budgets.
We would like to nominate Streatham Common Community Garden for this award. We are a charitable incorporated organisation, and have been running for over eleven years. The site was formerly the kitchen garden for The Rookery – the large house at the top of the area, which was demolished in 1911.
We negotiated an agreement with the council in 2010, to open the site as a community garden. Since then, hundreds of volunteers have worked hard to transform an overgrown wilderness into a busy and productive garden.
Of course, even in its original wild state, the area was naturally attracting wildlife in all forms. Whilst the planting of vegetables and companion flowers obviously attracted lots of insects in most areas of the garden, there was one area of it in a far corner that was too shady to grow any produce successfully – though we tried various planting. It was allowed to become a bit of a dumping ground for such things as broken water butts, bags of leaf mould, compost heaps – and there was often evidence of intruders breaking in over the hedge there and leaving empty cans and food containers there.
A team of volunteers decided to work in this area, and make it more attractive to wildlife in that part of the garden. The debris was cleared – as were a LOT of stinging nettles! The tree that largely shades that area is a yellow buckeye, and apparently one of very few in this part of London. The hedge that ran along the side of the area was relaid and mostly made up from hawthorn, blackthorn, elder and field maple.This provides food, cover and habitat that will encourage wildlife.
In the far corner where trespassers gained entry, we built a dead hedge, high and prickly enough to discourage intruders. It comprises deeply driven stakes at intervals, each side of a metre gap. The gap is then filled with branches from trees that have been copsed, or died back, until it is full. A small pond was dug and filled with water, which almost immediately attracted froglife! A bird table, bird feeders, and bird boxes were also added. A bug hotel was built using donated pallets and other materials that insects might like. Log piles were added too, and a fernery was created, with various examples of fern, which seems to love the dappled shade. The remaining area was seeded or planted with wild flowers and grasses, such as bugle, poppies, foxgloves, cow parsley, honesty and ox-eyed daisies – all of which should self seed in the future, and already attracting lots of pollinators. Finally we added a hedgehog house, and hope to be approved as guardians of a pair of these shy and rarely seen creatures sometime in the future. We have placed a bench there, so that visitors can sit and enjoy the tranquility of the space.
We would love to win an award for this transformed area of the community garden, and enclose a few photos that show it off to full advantage.
Greenham Close, London, is in the small walled garden behind one of the parking bays.
This started as a small inaccessible space full of rubble and glass behind one of the parking bays. There was some neglected hedging . During Covid in the centre of the city, a forgotten space has been cleared and planted with wildflowers. These are forever changing throughout the flowering season. They have not been planted for floral display, although the changing colour display is a joy for everyone to see. They have been planted for the bees and wildlife, full of diversity and pollinating plants. In Greenham Close we have been slowly trying to bring some colour and interest to the estate. Although there are green spaces and hedging there has not been a large amount of specific pollinating planting. It has been wonderful to create a space more like a natural habitat in the centre of the city that is dedicated to the birds and insects. The hedge cuttings have been left for the insects to inhabit and the plants are left to self-seed to help for the following year.
I would like to nominate Christine Makhlouf, Steve Robinson and Shaun Molloy-Shinners.
For the work we done for wild live on our estate. We got a pond with plants in it. Flowres for all insects and butterfly. Pond For toads, stag beetles, newts, all types of insects and birds to. Seen a toad in it. Birds drinking and stag beetle . We got lots of bushes for birds to fly free in and out also to hide and nest in. And bird feeders there to. Is looks beautiful and good for wild life.
I am nominating as I believe this space brightens people’s day, helps local wildlife thrive, improving the environment (and has already increased the variety of wildlife we see), gives residents an environment to be proud of (and can get involved in, building a better community) and although it cannot be seen in the pictures yet it also includes a hedge between the carpark and houses which will help absorb/block pollutants from the car park. The smell of heather is also gorgeous. I hope the more people that get involved in the estate the better we can make the whole estate and community for all.
Carnac Street Community Garden was built on a neglected, fly-tipping corner with no vegetation. It now provides food for pollinators during most of the year: starting in February with hyacinths and all the way to November. We have seen squirrels and parakeets feast on our sunflowers seeds too. It’s a pollinator paradise!
Hundreds of people pass by or through this beautiful small community garden every day including many school children. It sits at the intersection of two busy roads and by a bus stop.
Before 2020 the garden was an existing space with just grass and two trees surrounded by a narrow border of planting … but everything had become rather neglected.
Since 2020 Clarence Avenue Growers, a group of local people, have had a specific focus on increasing biodiversity along the whole of Clarence Avenue and particularly in this community garden. We began to introduce growing beds and key features to promote a diverse and thriving range of habitats for wildlife. The underlying principle being that if we look after the very smallest inhabitants, including microbial soil life, this will have the greatest impact on general biodiversity and healthy food growing. The garden now has a whole range of features that help to make this a reality: there are leaf collection bins and community composting. The leaf mould and compost produced are used to mulch and improve soil for growing veg in the raised beds.
There’s a small pond now where children and adults alike can marvel at the frogs, tadpoles and various insects that live in or use the pond. People can join the gardening group and learn some of the organic principles of caring for the environment and food growing, which are about balancing the needs of nature with our own. Fruit trees and bushes are in their second year and alongside a wide range of pollinator- friendly plants provide scope for pests and predators to co-exist in a healthy balance. As well as increasing the number of native plant species we have created habitats including wood and stone piles, patches of long grass, wild areas and plenty of nooks and crannies for pollinators, ground dwelling, and ground-active invertebrates. We see butterflies, moths, bees, ladybirds, woodlice and spiders setting up home. The other day we saw a lesser stag beetle emerge from inside some rotten wood. We also know that our actions are improving the microbial soil life that in turn supports all sorts of creatures. The garden now provides a home to a family of field mice who also enjoy the benefits of the compost heap. We love this garden because it is always open (it has three entrances onto the street) there are places to sit and stare and enjoy nature even when you are waiting for a bus. So many visitors or passers-by say ‘thank you’ and show their appreciation of this space. It has not been vandalized despite thousands of people tracking through and past it.
Although tiny, this whole magical garden is proof that nature is truly extraordinary and beautiful – people sitting under the trees in the shade or sheltering from the rain have a sense of this and often stay to read a book from our little library or just sit and enjoy the place which always seems quiet despite the traffic!
