As part of the events surrounding Chelsea Fringe Festival, Archbishop’s Park will be hosting free fun days every weekend until 10th June, starting this weekend.
The Big Buzz and Flutter will this weekend include include creating a lavender hedge and mosaic-making (11am-1pm), and in the afternoon you can make seed bombs and join a storytelling session. Check the full timetable of activities here.
(From LondonSE1 site) Bankside Open Spaces Trust is inviting SE1 residents to grow flowers and vegetables or make cakes and chutneys for a flower show in celebration of Octavia Hill a century after her death.
The Flower and Vegetable Show on Friday 14 September is a tribute to the Southwark Flower Show Octavia Hill regularly held at Red Cross Garden over a century ago.
Hill was a prominent social reformer and founder of Red Cross Garden and the National Trust.
With five months to go, BOST is urging local residents to start growing in preparation for the big day.
“We are really looking forward to bringing together the many different individuals and groups working on Edible Bankside gardens, and at the same time honouring the work of the great open spaces campaigner, Octavia Hill, who helped make this area green for the people who live here,” says BOST director Helen Firminger.
“We hope as many people as possible can join us.”
For more information, if you’d like seeds or help growing your flowers or vegetables – or if you would like to know where your nearest Edible Bankside garden is – you can contact Nicola or Hej at BOST on 020 7403 3393 or redcross@bost.org.uk
Full instructions for how to enter the show, as well as details of judges and prizes, will soon be available at www.bost.org.uk
The show, which is open to entries from individuals and groups, will have 12 categories:
• A seasonal SE1 grown floral display in a small vase – judged for presentation and variety
• Best SE1 September Display – vegetable and fruit display in a bowl or basket
• Most Unusual SE1 Vegetable eg unusual shaped carrot
• SE1 goes Exotic – home grown fruit or vegetable display eg okra, melon, tomatillo
• Best home produce entry – must contain at least some SE1 ingredients e.g. quiche, carrot cake, chutney
• Most interesting arrangement – container with SE1-grown flowers and vegetables eg in a shoe , tea cup, toy etc. (adult & under-14 sections)
• Biggest SE1 Pumpkin – or squash or marrow or other member of the gourd family.
• Best painting or drawing of a local flower or garden (adult & under-14 sections)
• Best photograph of a local flower or garden (adult & under-14 sections)
• Best SE1 Sunflower (under-14s)
• Paper garden which can be created on the day (under-14s)
• Best Octavia Hill Pelargonium (adult & under-14 sections).
Plug plants can be potted up and collected at the Red Cross Garden during the May Festival on Friday 11 May. If you cannot make the May Festival event please get in contact with Agnes at BOST to collect your plug plant from Red Cross Garden while stocks last.
Bankside Open Spaces Trust (BOST) is getting busy. New garden plots and gardeners seem to be springing up all around Blackfriars and Waterloo and Borough. Check the website for more information, or just turn up to one of the sessions listed here:
WEEKLY
Every Monday, meet at Redcross Gardens at about 10:30am. Contact Peter: peter@bost.org.uk
Every Wednesday, meet at Livingspace, Waterloo, 10:30am. Contact: peter@bost.org.uk
Every Tuesday meet at Christchurch, Blackfriars Road, 9:30am. Contact: mary@bost.org.uk
MONTHLY
First Thursday of the month, food growing/ general garden maintenance, meet at Lucy Brown House, Park St, 12:30pm – 1:30pm.
Second Saturday of the month, food growing, Diversity Garden, King James St, 10am – 1pm.
Last Wednesday of the month, food growing, meet at Diversity Garden, King James St 10am – 11:30am.
Last Wednesday of the month, food growing, Gateway Centre, Lancaster St, 11:30am – 1pm.
Last Saturday of the month, food growing, Sumner Buildings, Sumner St, 9:30am – 11:30am.
Last Saturday of the month, food growing,’Redman Green’, behind Redman House, Borough High St end of Lant St, 12pm – 2pm
Last Saturday of the month, food growing,’Perkins Park, off Perkins Square, Maiden Lane, 3pm – 4:30pm.
From the Elephant and Castle Urban Forest blog:
Elephant and Castle Urban Forest is London’s secret woodland. At its heart are 450 majestic trees, mostly London Plane, which for decades have been thriving hidden behind the towering slabs of the Heygate Estate in a part of London best known for concrete, cars and a big pink (now blue) shopping centre. Glimpses of the woodland can be seen by outsiders along the bustling New Kent Road and on the northern corner of Walworth Road. But today most of this mature forest is a sheltered and verdant semi-wilderness thriving in between the remains of the almost empty social housing estate. A few people know the secret and are having fun in there. Some residents remain and the evicted return to enjoy the green space. In clearings guerrilla gardeners have established new allotments and in the old playgrounds people still congregate. This forest has entered an exciting new phase of its life. But plans for the comprehensive redevelopment of the Elephant and Castle present risks for this precious place as the building density will increase. We campaign for valuation and appreciation of the forest.
This beautiful map is illustrated by local artist Rebecca Davies. Everyone is welcome to go and explore the site and get involved with some gardening there…
The Garden Museum
Lambeth Palace Road, London, SE1 7LB
10.30 – 5pm until Sunday 1st April
£7 (conc £6; under-16s free)
http://www.gardenmuseum.org.uk/
From the London-SE1 site:
Ever since the Victorians first longed to introduce more ‘green’ into their congested and polluted cities we have been striving for a better urban way of life.
This exhibition explores the many visions, designs and projects that have inspired the ‘green city’ movement over the last 150 years.
From the Victorian pioneers determined to improve living conditions in post-Industrialised Britain, to today’s ground-breaking landscape architects transforming our urban centres, the exhibition considers whether our current enthusiasm for eco-living and seasonality can make a lasting change.
The exhibition re-visits a time when areas like Brixton and Waterloo could be depicted as rural idylls – this green signature underlying London inspired the designer William Morris and the novelist Richard Jefferies to imagine a future in which nature takes over.
It tells the story of the very first ‘garden cities’ in Letchworth and Hampstead and their founders Ebenezer Howard and Dame Henrietta Barnett and looks at their legacy in the town planning of the 20th century.
It traces the impact of the Second World War and the wild flower meadows that sprang up in former bomb sites.
It considers the work of contemporary visionaries like the Japanese architect Terunobu Fujimori’s farming towers and Triptyque’s green-walled office building that collects, filters and mists water over Sao Paulo.
Bankside Open Spaces Trust (BOST) who have helped design and run various outside community spaces in the area (including The Gateway Community Garden and its sister project The Diversity Garden over the road) need help this Saturday up on Webber Street.
Please come down to The Gateway Centre tomorrow if you are interested in community gardening. After a few weeks hard work preparing the beds, we are ready to start planting in them, which is very exciting. Meet us here at the Gateway Centre at 10am, where free tea, coffee and biscuits will be provided, alongside all the equioment you will need.
We hope to see you here!
St George's Circus Living 