An end - and several new beginnings

All good things come to an end, and GCDA has finally finished maintaining the gardens at The Resource Centre at Sherard Road in Eltham, after being in attendance for over 10 years.

Initially there were no beds on site, so while they were under construction GCDA offered a series of informal talks on a variety of topics connected with food growing, plants and nature.

In the beginning, the front garden was cleared of alkanet and Michaelmas daisies, raised beds were built by Men in Sheds and two small ponds put in. After several years, a new double compost bin was created from re-used pallet wood to ramp up production of compost for use around the garden. The raised brick area surrounding the sycamore tree at the front was steadily enhanced with bulbs supplied by volunteers over the years. May was when it looked at its best. 

At the back, apple trees which came from the pop up MVMNT cafe when it was deconstructed found a new home (after they had spent a good while in temporary pots outside our previous office space in Greenwich). During lockdown, when it was impossible to get into the back space they continued to do their own thing until the site was opened up again. For anyone who doesn't know, just because a tree is on dwarfing rootstock doesn't mean it won't grow abundantly if unchecked - some of them had doubled in height when we returned to the site! Meanwhile, unbeknownst to us, 2 regular volunteers who had met at the gardening sessions had been coming along throughout lockdown to maintain the front section, with the result that it was nowhere near the jungle like state it could have been after all that time. 

Towards the end of our time there, a new path was constructed across the back area using materials already on site - pebbles and donated wood from the stores - to transform it from an awkward to manage space into an attractive feature with ever-increasing biodiversity to add to the raspberry row we had installed and the splendid old fuchsia standing twelve feet tall along the back wall. Frogs made their appearance and latterly a hedgehog was sighted by one of the staff moving around the back space one morning. 

Once it was realised that our time there was coming to a natural end, we made plans to re-purpose as many of the plants as we could by distributing them at other sites. Most of them have been temporarily housed at Spiral Garden, while others have been taken to be used at Woolwich Common Estate, where the ambition is to transform the entire estate by more imaginative use of colourful and resilient plants, such as we have used around The Clockhouse at Woolwich Dockyard. It is policy to maintain as wide a variety of plants as possible at all of our growing sites so that in the event of our involvement coming to an end, there is a supply of robust flowers and greenery which can be deployed as required. To that end, successful cuttings were taken of the fuchsia at the back, so that even though it will be lost when the site is ultimately redeveloped, it will have the chance to live on elsewhere in the borough.

That said, it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good; with the time freed up by not attending at Age UK, we are now able to support new sites. These include The Orchard Estate, Eglinton School and Greenwich Homeless Project, which will all receive at least some of the plants that formerly graced the garden in Sherard Road. Thus we leave with no regrets and with happy memories of our time there.

Kevin