It's Your Neighbourhood

 The It's Your Neighbourhood scheme is run by the RHS and designated to celebrate community gardening and the benefit it brings to neighbourhoods and those taking part. Registered gardens are known as IYNs which is quite clumsy and always needs explaining until you take part and understand what one is. If you look at the RHS's definition it makes a lot of sense:

 'Whether it's the street you live in, an existing community garden or a disused area that needs a revamp; almost any outdoor space being looked after by the local community can qualify for It's Your Neighbourhood'.

It's a great idea and I'm really keen to encourage the  creation of as many IYNs in South Swindon as possible. It's a great idea and has such benefits. This year we had 17 groups entering areas under this scheme. Three were looked at by the main Bloom judges on 26 July, and 14 were shown to Bloom judge, Richard Beale on 10 August in a marathon run round the projects. Richard has a stripey T shirt and black trousers on and appears in all photos! I took photos at all but one of the 14 sites, so here they are:

Here are the group from Central Community Centre at their Westcott allotment site. The group is led by Dan Fishlock and Jacob Green who have made a fantastic job of starting work on the allotment. Produce, examples of which can be seen below, is cooked at the Central Community Centre. 

There's another community allotment site at Westcott allotments, this one is shared by Justin Bishop of Blooming Smiles and Growing South Swindon Community

From there we went to Cambria Bridge raised bed and the bean patch along the old canal near the bottom of Kinghill where I forgot to take a photo of Becky Cox. Next we visited Sara Fluck at Eastcott Community Organisation at the Community Centre. Here Richard Beale and Martin Hambidge are advising on pruning of the willow arch to ensure it maintains its shape

And below outside the front of the community centre in Savernake St

From there we went to meet Karen Leggett who was representing Plastic Free Swindon a group which has made huge improvements to the back alley, and reduced littering and dumping by the addition of a sign labelling the alley , Blackberry Alley.

From Savernake St, we went to Swindon Road to Fishing for the Moon Garden where we met community gardener, Suzanne Martin to talk about the history and development of this lovely garden which has featured in four blog posts. I'll give a link to the official opening 2 years ago

From there we visited Mr Cod garden, opposite Long's Bar, one of the OTRA gardens. It featured on the main tour as well when a photo was taken of it:

From there we walked to meet Rosemary Savage who has continued to garden at Apsley House and ensures there's always a beautiful display there despite the building standing empty for the last 3 years.

We then went to meet Mill Lane Community Gardeners who have made a real difference to the area by the concrete road to the railway line, and show what can be done to improve your local neighbourhood. Richard also gave the group interesting ideas to improve on what they have down already such as painting signposts and then embellishing them with paintings of colourful creepers like Morning Glory.

Jane met Richard at Station Approach, one of the first OTRAGardens

And then moved on to meet Judith at a fairly recently donated garden on Marlborough Road

From there we went onto visit Matthew French at The Gap where he showed Richard what he has achieved there and plans for the future.

From there we met Gail and Val of Friends of Shaftesbury Lake to walk round the lake and see the improvements made by the group.

We ended the tour with plum sponge cake and cups of tea at Every Cloud at Stanton Park which although not in South Swindon, is well worth celebrating and visiting.

If you would like to join any of these community gardening groups, please follow the links associated with most of the posts, or leave a message on this site. If you have an idea for greening up your local area, please get in touch via this site or South Swindon Parish Council who support South West in Bloom. Awards will be presented in Truro Cathedral on 3 October, I'll feedback the results when we have them.