Growing for sustainability with the Tideway volunteers
You may have noticed some very hot, but very cheerful volunteers working in the garden on Monday 11 July. These brave souls, covered in factor 50, came from Tideway – the company building London’s new ‘super sewer’ and one of the funders behind Groundwork’s Our Space Award.
Thanks to this grant, we can now add some new features and planting to make the Railway Garden more sustainable and resistant to climate change. These include:
- More drought resistant plants
- More habitats for insects and birds
- A lovely big compost system to manage waste and feed it back into the garden
Not only that, but Tideway’s staff really enjoy getting their hands dirty and helping out. Their volunteer programme has helped over 180 organisations so far, and we’re grateful to be added to the list.
We started by clearing weeds and grass from the area behind the wishing well. This is to prepare it for some new interactive play elements, coming soon.
We tidied the undergrowth on the chestnut trees, did some major weeding, swept, tidied and added lots of biomass to the compost bins.
After all that hot work we felt more aware than ever that climate change is affecting us here in the UK. Here are a few tips we discovered for gardening when it’s hot:
- Drink lots of water
- Wear high factor sun cream
- Cover up with a light shirt and a hat
- Avoid the hottest part of the day if you can (11am to 3pm)
- Eat plenty of ice cream
Look out for new planting and some workshops on sustainable gardening themes throughout the year. If you’d like to help out at our next volunteer Sunday, no experience is necessary, just sign up to our mailing list.
