A Garden for Health

Edge of garden with mature plane trees and smaller trees below

With the whole house covered in scaffolding and nothing  much changing in the garden at present I want to tell you about a fascinating local garden. 

The St Paul's Woodland Garden is a truly secret garden. It is part of the St Paul's Church grounds but was closed off for many years and used to dump the ruins of the church after it was bombed during World War 2.

It lay unused until 2018 when it was repurposed by Green City Projects, in partnership with the church,  in order to creature a nature project developing a sanctuary garden, providing opportunities for people to address social isolation, mental health and the ecological crisis. When it is not being used by the groups it is a wild garden grown to promote the life of birds and wildlife generally. 

The garden. which is supported with funding from the National Lottery, is surrounded on one side by plane trees, originally part of the church garden. Next to these are hazel, elder, wild privet, wayfaring tree and blackthorn. These were introduced by the project to create different layers of the vegetation for birds to shelter and nest in.  

The garden looks wild, but is full of interest. Originally it had one cooking apple tree so it was decided to plant more each in its own little bed in the rubble  creating a  woodland edge orchard. Apple trees also provide nectar for the apple blossom bee as they attract ladybirds, something learned  from an entomologist they are collaborating with. 

Apple tree to attract  ladybirds

They have been working with various biodiversity experts including Benny Hawksbee and John Little and bee specialists Tony Magwich and Konstantinos Tsiolis from Pollinating London Together. They have commissioned Konstantinos to carry out surveys of the garden to identify levels of  wild bee populations. Simple suggestions for improving the landscape  for biodiversity  have included creating habitats at different heights to appeal to insects who live at height and those that live on the ground.

Raised habitat to allow for different insects

They have introduced a  wild woodland grass habitat and left patches of nettles to encourage butterflies such as Red Admirals, Peacocks and Speckled Woodland butterflies. Logs are kept for beetles in particular and there are spiders everywhere. All sorts of pots and buckets are brought in -  anything in which things will grow. 

On the sunnier side of the garden there are some tough raised wooden beds. In one of them are grown raspberries and under them an edible fern and under that wasabi, a kind of horse radish.  There are two mulberries and a big bed of herbs. 

Large water barrels collect rainwater from the roof of the church and there are two large tables for meeting, eating and working. There is even a compost toilet locked into a serious wooden shed.  

This wonderful wild and secret space is one of the things run by Ben Ledden and Catherine Tidnam who founded Green City Projects in 2019. (www.greencityprojects.co.uk) 

They will open the garden for my blog followers on 13 November from 12.30 to 1.30 and would be happy to hear from anybody willing to help from time to time. Pleases contact catherine@greencityprojects.co.uk if you would like to visit on 13th.