London City Gardeners Top Of Their Game

In inner London a record is currently being compiled of ancient apple trees

. A surprising number of old, moss-grown, unnamed and neglected apple trees have been discovered, in tiny patches of churchyard all but swallowed up in surrounding development, in tiny backyards, in these odd little squares that one finds surviving throughout the city. Indications of the many orchards that once grew inside London itself, they are now being listed, protected and nurtured.

There is a London borough where an abandoned walled garden has been lovingly brought back to full production. It produces barrowloads of fresh vegetables, fruit, and cut flowers and has become a haven for wild birds and butterflies. This has not in any way been done as a commercial venture; it is not a Garden Centre full of mass-produced plants, weedkillers, insecticides, black polythene and bark mulch. Nobody is making any money out of the walled garden indeed the Borough has lost money over it. But over a period of five years thousands of school children from local comprehensives have spent time working in the garden.

For many of them it was their first contact with soil other than that of a football ground, with seeds, and with growing plants. This has been both the gardens labour force and the prime reason for its restoration; the introduction of young city-dwellers to the delights, the frustrations and the rewards of gardening.

In other London areas, a group of dedicated enthusiasts are sowing seeds wherever there is a patch of waste ground. Clearly, waste ground in modern London does not remain waste for long these are development sites. But for a few months there will be campion, cornflowers, poppies, michaelmas daisies, marigolds,

There will be nectar for the bees and butterflies, seedheads and aphids for the birds and a little of the English countryside inside the city.

The people who have inspired these initiatives are not award-winning garden designers, but, they most certainly are city gardeners at the top of their game.

by: Richard Rowson

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