Collaborating with Coin Street Community Builders and Bankside Open Spaces Trust, Land Inspire’s brief was to overhaul the existing planting, much of which had become overgrown. Anti-social behaviour was rife, with nighttime activity posing a problem for residents. Rough sleepers could utilise the overgrown areas, leaving debris – much of which posed a health hazard to park users.
Following consultation with residents and user groups, Land Inspire created a planting plan for the gardens, utilising existing trees to create a framework, adding paths to activate the planting beds by encouraging park visitors to walk through otherwise unvisited areas and improving site lines across the sites to help reduce anti-social behaviour.
The photos below show the transformation from overgrown, monocultural beds to a more diverse and ecological planting palette, allowing access for maintenance and general visitor circulation. Paths were constructed from leftover building materials from a different project. Over 100 new species of plants were selected for their pollinator interest. The garden continues to grow more beautiful every season, and many volunteers tend it, many of whom helped establish it.
Land Inspire continues working with Coin Street Community Builders to give horticultural guidance to contractors and the community gardening group.
