Bloomin' Gardeners

Gardening in Caledonian Park and at the Age UK Islington, Drovers Centre

Address: Drovers Centre, Age UK Islington, North Road, N7 9EY and Caledonian Park, N7 9PL

Key people:

• Andrea Sinclair, Activities Co-ordinator, Age UK Islington

• Bhupesh Thapa, Assistant Parks Manager, Central Area, Islington Council Greenspace

• Sharon Barrett, Volunteer Gardener

Achieving:

Lottery Outcome 3: Adults and young people with low-level skills will report an improvement in their life skills.

History

Back in autumn 2014, the Octopus team were asked by Bhupesh Thapa from Islington Council’s Greenspace team if we could help them get community groups involved and better connected with Caledonian Park following completion of a major housing development adjacent to the park.

Octopus approached Andrea Sinclair, the Activities Co-ordinator at Age UK Islington based in the Drovers Centre, a well-attended drop in Day Centre for over 55’s located opposite Caledonian Park, offering a wide variety of activities including arts and crafts workshops, indoor games, dancing and trips to galleries and places of interest. There was some limited gardening offered, focused on some ‘Veg Trugs’ and recycling crates on the terrace in front of the centre. Recognising the benefits to well-being offered by gardening and outdoor activity and after a discussion about what might be possible, we decided to recruit gardeners to a group to take on one of the designated community spaces in the park.

Our Community-led engagement process

We decided that it was important that the local community, as well as those from the Drovers Centre, should be involved right from the outset. We already knew that we had a plot in the park to work with, but it had been ‘amenity planted’ by the developers of the estate: the garden consisted of two rectangular borders, with lots of tall grasses and little else. We began by inviting interested people including people attending the Drovers Centre and the Friends of Caledonian Park group, to a design workshop led by Bhupesh. He gave us a basic introduction to garden design then armed with flipcharts, pens and lots of tea we set to work to get ideas for the garden as well as a name for the group.

The group decided that first of all they wanted to introduce a more organic feel to the design, breaking up the harsh rectangles and getting some flowing, curvy shapes into the design. They were also keen to plant a wide variety of plants to attract pollinating insects. We drew up a design on paper and voted on suggested names.

The result was the Bloomin’ Gardeners – the name chosen to reflect both the horticultural focus of the group but also the cockney/London heritage of the Caledonian Park site, formerly the central meat market for London. With support from our earlier project, Urban Wild Places, an initial area of the park was adopted in late 2014 and a group began working there on a weekly basis to transform one of the designated community plots in the park from dull amenity planting to a beautiful pollinator friendly flower garden. As we have worked openly in the park, we have been able to talk to other users of the park which include local residents of the adjacent estate, runners, dog-walkers, children from local schools and a nursery.

What did we do?

Working in partnership with Age UK Islington we have created and developed distinctive garden areas in the park which are beautiful throughout the year, buzzing with wildlife and the base for a rich programme of activities. Although the gardeners are mainly the elderly users of the Drovers Centre, they have proved themselves more than up to the task, enthusiastically coming out in all weathers to maintain the garden and just enjoy it.

Where we have needed a little more muscle, we have benefited from a number of groups of teams of corporate volunteers from such firms as Santander, the Bank of Ireland, NHS Property Services team and the Good Gym.

As many of the gardeners had little experience, we turned sessions into mini-workshops offering guidance skills such as seed-sowing, taking cuttings, and seed saving. Under We Can Grow, the group ‘blossomed’, taking on a second plot in the park again with wildlife in mind, but this time focusing on birds with the planting including native shrubs planted in dense clusters to encourage nesting and with berries and hips.

We have used our gardens, both in the park and at Drovers to explore the culture and heritage of our participants. Having spent a wet winter afternoon talking about the plants, especially edibles that evoked our home countries we sent off for some seeds from Jungle Seeds and successfully grew some exotics including Amaranth, Hottentot Fig and Tree Spinach.

In a similar vein, we were invited to participate in a competition to create a wreath to commemorate the ‘Unremembered’, those civilians who gave their lives supporting troops on the front line. We created individual leaves, flowers and seed heads from copper foil of plants that represented our various countries of origin. These were then put together in a wreath. Our group was one of those chosen to visit the cenotaph on Armistice Day to lay the wreaths. Our own wreath was given ‘best in show’ status and is now on permanent exhibition in the Army Museum.

Photo BG 6 (to be added from Shared drive)

We were keen to widen participation in the group so developed a workshop programme based on the principles of the Five Ways to Wellbeing developed by the New Economics Foundation: Connect; Be active; Take notice; Keep learning and Give, (see Five ways to Wellbeing in the UK).

We used the garden as a focal point for a wide-ranging collection of workshops including plant-based dyes and cosmetics, herbal teas, medicinal plants, the importance of bees, willow weaving – creating plant supports for our garden, making insect homes and lots more. Creative highlights were the ‘modern day fossils – ceramic installations for the park; and our mosaic embossed planters for herbs.

We have undertaken visits to other gardens both locally: the Skip Garden and the Islamic Centre at Kings Cross; the Calthorpe Project; St Mary’s Secret Garden, Hoxton, and further afield making residential trips to the Lost Gardens of Heligan where we enjoyed a personal tour by the Head Gardener and the Eden Project in Cornwall, and RHS Harlow Carr in Harrogate.

What went well, what less so? Were there any unexpected consequences?

The gardens in the park have been a great success. The gardeners have all benefited from the experience – see below and the park has gained some beautiful spaces.

We have been hugely lucky in attracting so many corporate volunteers who have bravely assisted us in all weathers.

Broadening the programme to include a wide variety of walks, talks, garden visits and workshops as well as creative classes successfully broadened the reach and impact of the gardens. One small child regularly steers her Mum on her walk around the park to view our ‘fossils’, the shoe being her favourite.

The group has made use of our Community Plant Nurseries; first on the Andover Estate and then on the Tufnell Park Estate, sowing and growing on plants in the polytunnels for use in the park and in the Drovers Centre containers as well as helping us maintain the plant nurseries as a demonstrator gardens.

We have had no vandalism whatsoever – which has been wonderful.

Sadly, dog fouling is a problem right across the park despite the best efforts of rangers, gardeners and the Friends Groups.

Although there is plenty of curiosity and interest from passers-by when we are gardening in the park, we have failed to attract any additional volunteers from among the local residents which has been disappointing.

Key lessons learned

Widening the programme to include a variety of activities inspired by the garden was instrumental in engaging with a wider range of participants.

Age has nothing to do with the levels of enthusiasm and energy that can be demonstrated by our volunteers.

The park environment is a harsh one, with potential for trampling by visiting dogs (and the occasional child), so plants need to be robust.

Similarly, plants need to be able to grow tough – even with a tap on site, frequent watering was impossible and we had two of the hottest summers on record in the past two years.

The support of regular groups of corporate volunteers was extremely helpful in tough tasks like digging new borders and spreading mulch.

Facts and Figures

• 49 older people have participated

• 4 volunteers and 32 corporate volunteers have supported the garden

• More than 10 trips to inspiring community and public gardens

• More than 15 specialist talks and workshops on plant related topics

• Four Bloomin’ Gardeners volunteers promoted gardening for wellbeing at public events

• The gardens have won six Gold or Outstanding Awards in Islington in Bloom or London in Bloom competitions.

Impact

The overall activity programme was based on the principles of the Five Ways of Wellbeing has improved wellbeing, reduced loneliness and social isolation and helped people learn new skills.

Connect: all about meeting people, having conversations, sharing experiences.

Sharon (63) - 'if it was not for Bloomin' Gardeners I would sit at home alone. I love it here'.

A lady with health difficulties - ‘I like doing this with other people, I can help others and it makes me feel better’

Be active:Our gardeners have turned out in all weathers to plant, weed, prune and water the plots – no mean feat through this last year of weather extremes.

Brenda (over 65) - 'Being outdoors and gardening has made a great difference to my well-being. My health has improved in many different ways since I started ... learning different things, mixing with other people, visiting places. Wednesday is the most important day of my week'.

A frail, elderly participant - ‘I can no longer go outdoors on my own as its not safe’ … ‘ I was really missing fresh air and nature’, … ‘coming to the garden is the only time I get outdoors and I can breath again’.

Take notice: savour the moment, enjoy your surroundings and Learn: – continued learning throughout life improves self-esteem.

The group enjoyed inspirational trips to a wide variety of gardens including RHS Wisley, Myddleton House in Enfield and the Calthorpe Project.

Following a residential trip to the Lost Gardens of Heligan and the Eden Project, the gardeners were asked: What have you learned, what did you enjoy most and how has this trip affected your wellbeing.

Responses:

Sharon - The train journey down was great, the house lovely and the food also great. The gardens – over the moon! The trip made me see that I can stay with people I have not lived with which is great for me.

Geographic location

See the Location map for all the main sites

Immediate network connections

See the Connections map for all connections between projects