Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Well done Warham guerilla gardeners!
Lovely, lovely display of sweet peas in the public flowerbeds on Warham road. Sorry, I didn't have a camera to snap it for you - you'll have to walk up there and see for yourselves.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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I agree - just walked past them on the way to get the paper in the morning drizzle and they cheered me up like they do every day. Thank you green fingered Warham Roadies
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Can I add my congratulations as well!
I've emailed several of my councillor colleagues who'll want to know about this success. Lorna Reith reminded me that a scheme was developed on the Ferry lane estate where residents adopted planters with the permission and support of Homes for Haringey.
I also know about one or two other community-run schemes. Including of course, the GRA Community Garden and Finsbury Gardens which the Bowes Park Community Association calls its Village Green.
I'd welcome knowing of more. Does anyone have links to information and possibly some photos?
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Permalink Reply by Liz on
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They are amazing aren't they? Credit must also go to my neighbour, (not a computer user) and a little shy who was responsible for planting the sweet peas and looking after them in the main. He goes out early to water them and maintain the other flowers.Also to John who has been spending a few minutes every day just doing a little nipping out and tidying of the sweet peas. Maggie must also take a bow as the head gardener in Warham.
I've been away for a couple of weeks and it was amazing and quite wonderful to see such a blaze of colour on my return.
The planters in Mattison, that we gardened are also looking fine with some lovely poppies and a splendid banana tree about to shoot up in the large one as well as sunflowers.
I would really like to see more of the planters adopted. Harringay Passage is already a bit of a green corridor at this time of year but it would be wonderful if all the planters that we have were a blaze of colour!
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Permalink Reply by Tammy Palmer on
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These look amazing!!!!!! Well done to everyone who has clearly worked so hard to make these look so great.
could we get some for Wood Green High Road and some of the unloved spaces around the area...
I would also love something like this in my much unloved street - my hubby is a very keen gardner as are some of our neighbours so I am sure we could people to look after them.
How do we get them??
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Permalink Reply by Angela on
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Wow, they are stunning!
There are two raised brick beds on Frobisher Road which could do with replanting. There is some greenery in them and one is looking rather scrappy and overgrown - a bit of colour is just what they need! (I wouldn't know where to begin tbh)
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Hi Tamara
How we got these planters was a mixture of good luck i.e. we asked at the 'right time', a bit of a nudge from a local councillor and support from the now defunct neighbourhood management team. Marcia Connell has to take credit for getting this project off the drawing board and into the street (Marcia lost her job in the cuts). I complained that our crossing had defunct street furniture and proposed planters instead.
To my surprise, they agreed; took away the rusty barriers, gave us some planters made from recycled plastic and some soil from the parks department and then said the rest was up to us. Maggie, Rae, my neighbours and I found plants, dug bulbs into frozen soil in November and let nature do the rest...
I do updates in the Warham Road group and anyone who likes gardening are invited to go on guerilla gardening manoeuvres with us.
However, with the cuts it is unlikely that such projects can be supported in the foreseeable future. If there were ways to make it easier for people to perhaps build their own planters in the streets with a nod from the council, or more practically for people to find and take over neglected planters and get stuck in.
Speaking of which, maybe the best thing to do to get started, Angela, is to weed and tidy up the planters, as we did in Mattison, and maybe stick some bulbs in for the spring? I'm clueless about gardening but there are a lot of good gardeners out there that might offer to help if you put an appeal out on HOL?
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Permalink Reply by tigha on
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They look really beautiful,
I have to confess at not being much of a gardener and so have stuck to watering only, the bit on mattison road, Go out wth my hose pipe a couple times a week-looks so much better and good job on whoever just did a spot of weeding there- i have seen some plants pulled up a couple weeks ago,but tried to replant the
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Brilliant thanks for he advice Liz - I am going to give it a go - it looks so lovley and welcoming it would realyl brighten our street up I think!
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Permalink Reply by Isidoros on
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Well done, a great example of community action in action, but ... it's worth pointing out that there are many other examples that have been appearing in recent years in our borough, eg here in Tottenham Green we are, I think, a bit ahead of the game!!
In the last few years local residents groups have transformed a number of small peices of previously neglected land into small community gardens, looked after by volunteers. As Liz points out it takes a few determined local activists, abit of help from a local councillor and our (now sacrificed to the cuts) neighbourhood management staff, and a bit of ingenuity in tapping potential sources of support, to achieve some mini-wonders. Some examples worth looking at in our patch:
In Hanover Road the Tynemouth Rd RA (TARA), with help from the local Neighbourhood Management Team (NMT), some small funding from Homes for Haringey (HfH) and a tiny Make the Difference (MtD) grant and some voluteers from a contractor that was doing some work nearby, have created a small community garden (including a beautiful mural, flower plots with railway slippers, robust fencing etc) in a narrow strip that was previously permanently dumped on and a source of problematic night-time activities. The residents are looking after it and they have just had a Big Lunch celebration party there.
In Lomond Close, again with a bit of money from HfH and MtD, and help from the NMTand from the council's parks department (who provided free and delivered topsoil, fertilisers etc), local volunteers from FARA (Fountain Area Residents Association) have planted trees and flowers in a previously neglected bit and have been looking after it since (with one of the local residents allowing her tap to be used for watering using a long hose bought with MtD money!).
A more ambitious project (Vamp the Ramp) by the same FARA Team in the same area (Kirkton-Suffield Rds) is on its way with help from Groundwork, HfH, Parks MtD etc
In Jansons Road, CARA volunteers have created with a bit of MtD money etc a mini flower garden by the side of a small carpark (and constant source of ASB) which they've named "Mazie's Gardens, in honour of a local activist and life long resident who died recently).
etc etc
The demise of Neighbourhood Management will undoubtedly have an impact on such things in the future but we are looking constantly for ways to help RAs to take little problem sites into their own hands and transform them.
Isidoros
(I know there are many more examples elsewhere but I am of course a bit .. biased!! I am a Tottenham Green councillor)
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