Gardener's notebook: Meet the Londoners turning their neglected parks into green havens

London has much than 600 friends of parks groups. Normally made up of volunteers, ‘friends’ person go an indispensable portion of our city’s greenish space.

They elevate their section parks, inviting the assemblage to get progressive and giving radical a consciousness of licence successful the places they live.

Susanna Grant, is planting decorator and trustee of Friends of Arnold Circus, a tiny nationalist plot and bandstand located successful Tower Hamlets Boundary Estate wherever determination has been a friends radical since 2004.

“The plot astatine Arnold Circus is built connected a mound of rubble from the slum lodging clearance that took spot earlier the Boundary Estate was built,” Grant explained. “Tired and neglected It was a spot of a no-go portion for galore years.”

Supported by section artists including Rachel Whiteread and Martino Gamper, who created artworks to merchantability successful bid to fundraise for the restoration of the garden, the friends person replanted the abstraction with ecology successful mind.

Since 2020, Chris Raeburn, antecedently the gardener astatine the Phoenix Garden, has brought his cognition of nationalist gardening and wildlife to the Circus.

“Gardening successful a nationalist abstraction is rather hard,” said Raeburn. “People bash each sorts of things, truthful the plants request to beryllium resilient, but the radical gardening bash too, things volition ever get trodden connected oregon broken, but you can’t fto it interruption your spirits.”

In a motion to the area's works increasing past earlier the property was built, their adjacent fundraising lawsuit is assemblage works fair, taking spot connected Sunday 13 October.

Some of the country’s champion works growers, including Great Dixter, Beth Chatto and Leahurst Nurseries volition beryllium selling their plants astir the circus to rise funds for the continued upkeep of the gardens.

Gardening with level trees

● We plot nether large level trees connected a steeply sloping mound of rubble. In summer, watering nether the level trees is alternatively pointless truthful we don’t. Some plants volition illness disgracefully from drought, and that’s ok. We chopped backmost the worst, disregard the remainder and absorption connected drought-proof evergreens.

● Sculptural seed-heads and aureate grasses transportation america done autumn erstwhile rainfall returns and caller maturation soon re-greens the plot adjacent arsenic the level leaves fall.

● There is simply a batch of nonsense said astir level histrion leaves that “they ne'er interruption down”. We person large large leafage bins wherever each the level leaves are turned into fantastic leafage mould. There is nary trick, we conscionable support them moist and crook them a mates of times done the play to premix with a fewer handfuls of chicken-poo pellets chucked successful for luck - filled each autumn it’s acceptable to usage the pursuing year. We marque 15 m3 of leafage mould each year.

● In winter, the circus is bright, sunny and inner-city mild. It is perfect for aboriginal bulbs and wintertime flowers. Spring has it astatine its champion with woodland level stalwarts carpeting the crushed with colour earlier the level leaves unfastened and it’s plunged into heavy shade.

An Autumn Plant Fair volition beryllium held connected Sunday 13 October from 10.30am – 3.30pm astatine Arnold Circus, Shoreditch, E2 7JR @arnold_circus