Swindon Road Community Garden

 It's been quite a time since I first wrote about this garden in Swindon Road, 23 January 2020. South Swindon Parish Council had identified it as a garden which would benefit from improvement in this post: http://kasmaty.blogspot.com/2020/01/a-new-community-garden-for-2020.html . Since those carefree days, we have been overtaken by the Covid 19 pandemic and nothing has been as easy to do as planned, with lockdowns getting in the way of activities at the garden.

However by 6 December 2020, I was able to report that the refurbishment of the garden had taken place, and it was now ready for planting as a sensory garden by the head Gardener at Town Gardens: http://kasmaty.blogspot.com/2020/12/an-update-on-swindon-road-garden.html Planting has now taken place of plants which either have an interesting smell when touched, or feel lovely like Stipa tenuissima also known as pony tails. Planting was done straight into the soil, rather than laying down a membrane and covering it with bark because it will allow more flexibility when we want to add more plants to the garden. This has meant that we have a legacy of nettles and a vigorous strain of bindweed which needs weekly attention ideally.

Things don't necessarily go smoothly, and you may be aware that the traditional April showers have changed with climate change to April drought, so since the planting took place, there has been little rain. Here's a glimpse of photos taken after the planting in February:

In the first photo you can see the wall behind the bed looks a bit unstable, this has now been removed and replaced with wooden fencing, so if you were to visit the garden now, you would see this bed is empty, the plants have been removed until the bed can be restored to its former condition.

Above you can see pillars built to hold the retaining wall in place

This is the top bed on the right, and below a lovely little bed at the front of the garden with lavenders in.

The grass you can see in the photos is the pony tails one

And finally a glimpse of one of the newly refurbished benches completing the picture.

Moving forward to April, and with lockdown easing, we are now able to meet at the garden while maintaining social distancing guidelines. We have met twice, and begun the job of keeping on top of the bindweed and nettles which seem oblivious to the dry conditions.

Here's one of the volunteers getting down to the weeding

Above a finished bed, for the moment, and below more digging, while taking care obviously not to dig up the plants.

We are hoping this garden can provide gardening opportunities for people, and we do need more volunteers to help maintain the garden. If you are interested in volunteering, please email Matt on comms@southswindon-pc.gov.uk

We keep being reminded the garden is really called Fishing for the Moon garden, more here from a post by Barrie Hudson in the Link magazine: https://swindonlink.com/news/community-garden-refurbished/