Campaigner Ellen Miles says community gardening doesn’t have to be secretive
(Picture: Handout)Even the Victorians understood the importance of green space for London’s health and well-being but between the pandemic and recent extreme weather, there’s an added urgency to the drive to reintroduce nature to urban areas. But real action is often limited thanks to overstretched council budgets.
Thankfully, a new generation of Londoners are realising they don’t have to wait for someone else to make a positive impact in their neighbourhoods. Communities are stepping up to take over neglected public spaces and transform them into well cared-for green oases.
In 2020 campaigner and nature activist Ellen Miles (dreamgreen.earth) began making improvements in her neighbourhood. “To many it is seen as an act of vandalism, but it doesn’t have to be something that is secretive, illicit and must take place under the cover of darkness. More often than not, as long as it’s public space, you’re probably not breaking the law,” Miles explains.
There are very few laws when it comes to gardening on land for which your local authority is responsible. In some London boroughs, such as Hackney, taking ownership of unloved public spaces is encouraged. “If you are making a genuine improvement to your local area, it’s unlikely you’ll be stopped; we shouldn’t be shy about trying to improve the streets we live on,” Miles says.
Miles started on her own but very quickly realised the radical act of planting in a neglected space under a tree lent itself to conversations with passers by and parts of the community she would never normally encounter. “It’s easy to live in London a bit like a ghost, and never meeting the other people who live in your neighbourhood, because often there is no reason to. But through starting to garden the streets, you build connections and feel like you’re making a positive change, not just for the environment but for peoples’ well-being. Ultimately you’re building shared agency over the streets, which really belong to all of us.”
There is no right or wrong way to start gardening in public space but even with the greenest fingers, it’s important to accept that not everything will succeed. Here are Miles’s seven Ps of planting the streets:
Purpose
Do you want to support local pollinators, bring a community together, or grow food?
Place
Tree pits (the square bits of soil around a street tree) are a good place to start. Start small and grow.
People
With more people you’ll have better buy-in, you’ll get more done and you can share responsibility for maintaining the spaces you improve. Use posters and platforms like Nextdoor to reach out to interested neighbours.
Plan
Bright blooms bring momentary cheer, but there is no point wasting time or money on plants that are going to struggle to survive.
Think about light levels, amount of rain and what the soil is like and choose plants that work for the space.
Parts
Buy local, use native species, encourage community donations and return pots to friends and gardeners. Make use of your local tool library.
Plant
This is the fun part but bear in mind a few provisos. Don’t trespass on private land; keep pathways clear and be mindful of postboxes and benches.
Protect
Using wooden boards to create an edge around the space you’ve gardened will help keep plants in place and prevent trampling. Providing aftercare, watering and health checks are also important to sustaining the space.
