The Walled Garden
We have been dreaming of a home for Grow for Life for some time and are delighted to share that we've been given an incredible opportunity to take over an abandoned walled garden!
It is a perfect site for creating a safe, inspiring space for our new gardeners. A place of restoration.
The starting point
Here's a photo of the abandoned garden in 2021 before we got to work.
As you can see we've already made some incredible progress in transforming the site...
"We will create an organic garden with vegetables, flowers, soft fruit and espaliered fruit trees.
It will be designed to be a haven of peace and productivity where our new gardeners can work alongside our staff and volunteer teams, relaxing and learning gardening and horticultural skills."
Martin Geake
Chair of Trustees
Be a Founding Investor
We'd love to invite you to be a founding investor in the Walled Garden.
As well as developing the site into a beautiful and productive garden, we are also making service connections to water, sewage and electricity, and building The Potting Shed: a small wooden cabin to provide shelter and a warm welcome to all our new gardeners. It will have a meeting/training room and a kitchenette. We are also installing toilets.
Our estimate of the capital cost of developing the site and erecting The Potting Shed and toilets is £60,000.
We are approaching grant making trusts for much of this sum but they in turn require Grow for Life supporters to make a contribution. We aim to raise £20,000.
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The final plan
Our Garden’s main key drivers are:
• Social gathering
• Food production
• High diversity
• Education
The final plans were created by our own member of staff who is a garden and permaculture designer.
The design also bears the stamp of our brilliant new gardeners who've shared their opinions, wants and desires via our 'new gardener steering committe' during the design process. This garden is for our gardeners so it was imperative to have their input and get their sign-off on the final design.
We can't wait to see the vision translated into a real-live haven of plants, paths and purposeful spaces for our gardeners to connect, learn and grow.
Design & planting details
The entire site offers edible and/or medical plants. All the plants have been chosen primarily for these traits, with many also offering additional benefits to bees and wildlife. Other benefits include beauty—scent and colour of flowers and blossom. Many of the shrubs and trees also contribute to the seasonality of the garden with autumn colour through their leaves, all helping to connect people to the seasons while they are present in the garden.
The top area is filled with welcoming flowering perennial and then further back—fruit trees and berry shrubs providing welcome shade and seclusion for those simply wishing for privacy and a sit spot. The middle section provides our largest social and educational space with our polytunnel, and our keyhole brightly coloured cutting garden. The lower third is where our permanent vegetable beds will be worked.
Species List
For those interested in the full species list proposed for our Walled Garden you can download the SPECIES LIST here.
Join the journey
Follow along as we transform an abandoned walled garden into a therapeutic and productive space that we can call home
We'll be posting regular updates on the walled garden here. So grab yourself a cuppa and read all about it!
Before
After
