This month we’re throwing the spotlight on two community gardens which are both beautful, biodiverse spaces providing sanctuary to pollinators and other wildlife, as well as people.
Community Healing Garden
The Community Healing Garden is based on Vauxhall Gardens Estate, SE11. Their vision is to create a garden to benefit wildlife, support food growing and create a beautiful space for the local community to enjoy. The garden is divided into different areas including raised beds, a greenhouse, wildflower meadow and a wildlife pond. All of the spaces are managed for biodiversity and the garden feels spacious, wild and welcoming at the same time.
We met the founder of the garden, Jerome Webb as well as volunteer co-ordinator Hugh Chapman, who are both committed to developing the project. They have received some small grants from Tesco and London National Park City to get the project started, and are now looking at applying for some larger amounts of funding to tackle some larger projects. They are inspired by the sustainable techniques of John Little and his Grass Roof Company and are hoping to create a maintenance plan in collaboration with the council to manage all of the green spaces across the estate.
St John’s Waterloo
St John’s churchyard garden is an oasis of calm, situated just moments away from the busy hubbub of Waterloo station. The garden welcomes hundreds of people a day including local residents, dog walkers, commuters, office workers taking lunch breaks, and homeless people looking for somwhere to relax. The garden has been managed for biodiversity for the last twenty years: there is well-established perennial planting organised in different zones including a dry garden, herbaceous border, woodland garden and wildflower meadow. A wildlife pond has been added more recently.
We met Santa Pedone, who is employed by The Bridge at Waterloo (a secular charity funded by St John’s Waterloo church), as community gardener 2 days per week. She runs weekly sessions for a team of regular volunteers and gives work experience to special needs students learning horticulture skills. Santa has introduced edible planting to the churchyard including trained fruit trees and currant bushes along one side of the church. She is working on plans to expand the food growing to make the garden more productive and to help keep volunteers engaged.
St John’s Waterloo hold an annual festival every July including music events and an art exhibiton in the garden.
It was inspiring to visit two community gardens that both prioritise biodiversity and makes space for wildlife in such central London locations.