Today I am going to talk to you about a Community Project I am collaborating with in the area where I live, Fulham.
A few weeks ago I was contacted by a local developer with the idea (maybe a little unrealistic one) of improving the look of a quite devastated piece of land for a better use by the whole community. The area itself, opposite to the Fulham Palace Garden Centre, has been left without maintenance for several years now so everything in there is overgrown, full of weeds and in really bad conditions, something that promotes the place to be seen completely unattractive and unsafe when it gets dark.
After a couple of meetings to better know how the Project was going to be managed I decided to put my hands on it as much as possible, as the main idea was to contact volunteer people to help with the labour while trying to collect money through donations from shops and businesses nearby to supply plants and other materials needed.
The first point though is to improve the general look of the place, clearing all the creepers growing on the external fences to then chop down most of the overgrown and old shrubs, as the only thing they are doing at the moment is to hide the views of the garden from the streets and shade almost all of the area. And that is exactly what the first group of volunteers have been doing today, with the help of the Community Payback Scheme from the Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham and some other anonymous volunteers. Here you can see a couple of pictures taken during the day but tomorrow I will tweet some more so you can really see the difference.
Works will continue every Wednesday morning for the next 2 to 3 weeks, so the area can be cleared of roots, tree suckers and rubbish for then, condition and improve the existing soil with some new manure, compost and fertilizer. But where do we want to get with all this? Well, here is I come into action, as I have prepared a small but interesting design to plant up an area of 65 m² approx. which we are all expecting improves the general perception of this garden and therefore, its use by all the people living in the area.
The problem as you can all imagine is the money, as the funds at the moment do not allow to even buy the first complete lot of manure/compost. As previously said, we are in talks with shops and businesses in the area, will have a meeting tomorrow with The Fairbridge Garden Society and the closest neighbours seem really interested but at the moment, that is all we have got. So if you feel having an idea to help or want to donate towards the purchase of plants, please feel free to contact me through this blog or e-mail me instead. Any help is welcome!
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