RHS London in Bloom Award
2024: Salopian Garden L5 โOutstandingโ Award
DIG Hanwell Garden L3 โAdvancingโ Award
2023: Salopian Garden Silver Gilt Award
2022: Salopian Garden L5 โOutstandingโ Award
We are very grateful for the effort, energy and ideas that the volunteers have put in this last year at The DIG. This award will encourage us to keep the garden growing and fulfilling more of its amazing potential, while having a lot of fun along the way.
The Salopian Garden goes from strength to strength and continues to be enjoyed by a wide group of volunteers from our community. Watch this space as we aim for gold!
Volunteers make an important contribution to our work; we always welcome volunteers at all of our sites. If you would like to know more email volunteering@ayseesww.com.
Using our combined years of experience working with local communities in London through horticulture & urban green spaces, we provide practical consultation for community groups and engagement consultation for commercial organisations, alongside workshops and sessions for community engagement at your site or at any one of the ones we manage.
We work with several community groups to provide on the ground horticultural skills, expertise and mentoring for their green spaces including design and development of the growing spaces, ongoing maintenance, yearly growing plans, community engagement plans and activities, seasonal events.
HOUNSLOW THRIVING COMMUNITIES
We continue to work with Hounslow Council on various community initiatives, from our outreach โGrow in a Circular Economyโ to Heston in the Loop, delivering horticultural workshops and โTrain the Trainerโ programmes to enable groups to become self led. Along with โGrow for the Futureโ a first-of-its-kind policy in the UK to turn unused and unloved land across the borough into new allotment sites, community gardens and orchards to grow food in a cost-of-living crisis and teach urban children about healthy living, sustainability and biodiversity.
DIG SITE, HANWELL
Since getting the keys in late 2022, we have renovated this beautiful neglected space and opened it up for use by the community. We have had some fantastic individuals and corporate groups help us on this journey either through corporate volunteer days and/or funds to repair and replace key items.
We now run regular weekly open volunteering events at the garden as well as hosting different groups such as NHS, horticultural colleges and specialist educational providers to run their own days for their clients.
Community Volunteering
Volunteers make an important contribution to our work; we always welcome volunteers at all our sites.
The DIG Community Garden, 62 Green Lane, Hanwell, London W7 2PB
Every Monday, 10 โ 3pm All welcome, no booking or experience necessary, come along meet some new people, we are a friendly group!
The Salopian Garden, 689a London Road, TW7 4ES
Every Wednesday 10 โ 4 pm. Drop in, meet some new people. We have strong cohort of regulars and new people joining all the time โ no experience necessary, just a can-do attitude!
Berrymede Community Gardens, Acton Gardens Primary school, 232 Osborne Rd, London W3 8SN
The beds are located in the playgrounds of the 3 buildings of the Acton Gardens Primary school (formerly Berrymede), the drop-in sessions are outside lessons times: Saturdays 11:30 โ 14:30 and Tuesdays 3-5pm (during summer 4-6pm plus an extra session on Thursdays).
All level of experience are welcome. For more info contact communitygardens@ayseesww.com.
Dean Gardens, Ealing W13
Continuing our work with Ealing Council Parks. This Summer we will be working to deliver their community programme in Dean Gardens, Ealing, W13 9BG. Open to all, the sessions are designed to help the community engage with their local park, meet their neighbours and help to generally improve the park. โ The sessions will be run weekly starting on Tuesday 21st May 2024 until 10th September 2024 โ Time 11 am โ 1 pm.
Health and Wellbeing
Through increased physical activity and access to green spaces our work helps the community by:
- Reducing isolation and promoting wellbeing: we bring people together for group activities in community settings, including initiatives targeted at isolated men and women, young mothers and older people.
- Creating healthier neighbourhoods: we involve people in improving their local parks and green spaces, creating routes for walking and cycling and using green infrastructure to tackle air pollution.
- Encouraging physical activity: we encourage people to be more active by taking part in practical conservation volunteering, and we use sport and physical activity in many of our youth programmes.
- Enabling healthier eating: we give people the chance to learn about and grow their own food in a sociable setting, demonstrate healthier cooking and broaden peopleโs culinary choices.
We work with a variety of local partners to deliver projects at the Salopian Garden that help create healthier, greener places to live, and run community activities that encourage healthier living and support people through practical volunteering to improve their wellbeing and manage health conditions.
Salopian Outdoor Kitchen
Our garden and outdoor kitchen and cooking facilities at the Salopian Garden have been improved. We can now run enhanced projects to learn hands-on how to link food growing to healthy eating, helping people of all ages learn about and access fresh produce, and gain skills critical to a healthy lifestyle.
Thank you to Hounslow Thriving Communities who made this latest improvement possible.
Many of our community members can benefit from the โfield to forkโ experience we offer at the Salopian Garden. We will create areas specifically designed to be accessible to children, elderly community members, wheelchair users and others with limited mobility. We want everyone who would like to take part in on-site cooking activities to be able to do so.
There is no better way to build community than through growing, cooking and eating food together.
Older sites where we maintain a light touch approach with the community.
In spring 2019, the team transformed this once thriving community garden back to its former glory and then continued to manage the garden over the following seasons, , whilst providing weekly sessions for local community members to enable them to make the best use of their green space, grow food that can supply the community cafรฉ in the centre and/or to take home and use. The intention is that the community will eventually take over full control of the space. We are currently looking at the best way to facilitate this.
In spring 2019, the team transformed this once thriving community garden back to its former glory and then continued to manage the garden over the following seasons, , whilst providing weekly sessions for local community members to enable them to make the best use of their green space, grow food that can supply the community cafรฉ in the centre and/or to take home and use. The intention is that the community will eventually take over full control of the space. We are currently looking at the best way to facilitate this.
Work here started in April 2018 and has been very successful for the community, we continue to over- see this garden on a regular basis and it is a great example of community โbuy inโ demonstrating that these spaces can have longevity.