The Elizabethan Tower where Vita had her study. Credit: Shutterstock
05.07.2023 - 21:25 / gardeningknowhow.com
Community gardens are shared spaces for neighbors to grow vegetables and other plants. There are ways everyone benefits from these spaces. One important benefit and goal of these gardens is to promote sustainable gardening. Sustainable community gardens beautify neighborhoods, support, wildlife, and benefit the health of participants.
The connection between community gardens and sustainability works both ways. While participants might actively work toward sustainable gardening practices, simply having community gardens leads directly and indirectly to greater sustainability.
Studies from Australia and the United Kingdom show that areas with community gardens are more sustainable overall. One of the environmental benefits is greater biodiversity in the neighborhood. Community gardens also contribute to sustainability by changing the attitudes and perspectives of residents. Neighbors involved have a better understanding of where food comes from, which develops their appreciation for healthy lifestyles and sustainability.
Working in these gardens also helps people understand that they are not passive components of the environment, but rather active participants. They have a better appreciation for how they can take action to make positive changes. Participants take both the knowledge and the empowerment that comes with it back to their own lives to make more environmentally responsible choices.
Community garden sustainability is a natural part of the process to some degree. By taking an abandoned or even polluted space in a city and turning it into a thriving, diverse garden, community members automatically make the neighborhood more sustainable.
It’s important to take this further, though, and to actively engage in practices
The Elizabethan Tower where Vita had her study. Credit: Shutterstock
For just $40, plus $10 for lunch, visitors can enjoy Nate and Berta Atwater’s modernist masterpiece, before heading to John Gwynne and Mikel Folcarelli’s rarity-stuffed hidden garden, Sakonnet. Amazing Opus Nursery, the place of master grower Ed Bowen, will be on hand all day for a plant sale that’s every bit as special as the palette of Dixter.For those within a day’s drive, this is a garden party not to be missed. Get glimpses of all the gardens (as well as of Dixter) and the event details in this pdf about the event. Best of all: Each dollar raised will be matched by the UK’s “lottery board” so that Great Dixter may carry on in its colorful, inspirational style.(Anthony Chammond photo of pots at Dixter from Flickr.)
You may ask: Now why would I want to go to a talk about a historic and grand National Trust property situated in another climate altogether, a place long on fantastic walls and fountains, connecting outdoor “hallways,” magnificent topiaries, and hedges of box, hornbeam and yew? (As is probably the case in your garden, I have not one of those things here.)On a visit maybe 20 years ago, Hidcote was the initial place I saw such formal lines contrasted against a “jungle style of planting.” Even though each garden area is clearly enclosed and its shape well-defined, as in the famed Red Border up top, the plants in individual beds within each area were invited to just have at it, to spill out into the paths here and there, and to spill into one another in a riot of color, texture and intimate connection that’s both restrained and unrestrained all at once. Delightful.And then, it was this that made me perk up at news of the upcoming lecture:On Garden Conservancy Open Days at my
Colorado-based Kenton Seth and Paul Spriggs from British Columbia are garden designers with a particular specialty in rock gardens. We did a “New York Times” garden column together not long ago, and I wanted to learn more.When they appeared this spring on the popular Garden Masterclass webinar series, British host Noel Kingsbury said this in the way of introducing them: “Rock gardening will no longer elicit a yawn because this is the future.”I was so glad to talk with them to give us a peek into this brave new world. (Above, from the book, part of a
But what if we thought of maintenance as an expression of creativity, instead of merely restraint—as part of the art of garden-making? What if we figured it into our design decisions right from the start? Particularly as our gardens shift in a more ecological direction and become more naturalistic, that adjustment and approach seems especially important.Ongoing creative maintenance is our topic today with Noel Kingsbury and Annie Guilfoyle, hosts of the popular Garden Masterclass series of workshops and webinars.Annie Guilfo
Echinaceas are real dazzlers in the late-summer border: sturdy daisies standing erect with flowers that resemble sets of spinning saucers. The colourful sun-ray petals surround bronzed, almost metallic cones. These prickly centres also give echinacea its name, for Ekhînos is Greek for hedgehog.
Echinaceas are real dazzlers in the late-summer border: sturdy daisies standing erect with flowers that resemble sets of spinning saucers. The colourful sun-ray petals surround bronzed, almost metallic cones. These prickly centres also give echinacea its name, for Ekhînos is Greek for hedgehog.
Do you think it’s even possible to have too many lavender plants?A fragrant favorite in flower be
USDA Zones: 7-11
Wax flower (Chamelaucium uncinatum) is an evergreen shrub covered in needle-like leaves, with clusters of small, fragrant, pink or purple flowers appearing in spring and summer. A favourite with florists for its long-lasting blooms, wax flower is so called because its fine slender leaves have a waxy feel.
The Screw Pine is a popular indoor plant that requires moderate attention. Its long leaves spread outwards from the center to give a remarkable view. Read on to find out How to Grow Pandanus veitchii Indoors.
A former AIB banker-turned-gardener says he feels “like a five-year-old getting presents” after winning a major award as well as a prestigious gold medal at the Chelsea Flower Show in London.