Community Worker needs help!

Hello all,

I am a community worker in London and have recently been given the task of coordinating a project whereby local residents help landscape other residents (who may have difficuly gardening) front gardens!

not being anything of a gardener myself (although my grandad is from a farming background in India,he has not passed these skills to me!)I would really appreciate some advice on what materials/plants i could use to create a very low maintance, sustainable garden!

Any help from you intrepid gardeners would be greatly appreciated as i do not want to repeat the mistakes i have made in the past of thinking - blue flower, red flower wow thats a nice garden!

thank you to anyone who has taken the time to read this!

Manny.

 

First of all, Manny - have you heard of Thrive? Look at this link, and see what they have to offer
http://www.thrive.org.uk/

Do you have to arrange to provide tools too?

I do some work of the type you're describing, and each garden I go to is entirely different, although all in the same small area of Edinburgh - all with different needs, and I'm sure it will be the same for you in London, so you really need to look at each garden and assess what's needed.

Having said that, the main things that impove the look of a garden are to cut and edge the grass, cut the hedges, weed, and then start on pruning.

Anywhere that's very bare, I use annuals, sown in drifts, with taller ones at the back, and bearing in mind what colours the residents like. This is by far the cheapest way if you're on a tight budget.

If this is a long-term proposition, I mean if you're going to be going back to the same gardens regularly, rather than constantly starting lots of one-off projects, it would be worth sowing some perennials too, and gradually having more of that, with fewer annuals.

I hope this makes sense and helps a bit. And good luck with it!

 

Hi Manny, I used to work as a horticultural therapist for disabled people. Dendrobium has already provided some excellent info to your query and also given you a link to Thrive, which may well be what you are looking for. Depending on the specific type of projects you are designing, you may consider plant types - fragrance eg. lavender, rosemary etc; touch eg. lambs ears (Stachys lanata) lovely and soft as the name suggests; sounds that foliage make in a breeze eg. bamboos and use wind chimes in the garden too maybe, not to mention the sound of running water, but this maybe beyond your current scope. The list goes on...
Hope this is relevant to your projects.
Kind regards
Roy

 

Thanks for your help Royster and dendrobium (some kind of plant??)!

the link to thrive is really helpful am going to speak to them and see if they can be involved or help in our project in any way!

once again thanks for your help,

Manny.