The first week in April marks Community garden week which celebrates the amazing community and school gardens across the UK. The garden week takes place from April 4 to April 10.
Nottingham is home to a number of creative community gardens across the city. As the weather starts to improve, the gardens provide a peaceful way to spend an afternoon in the sun.
Here are five community gardens in the city that are worth a visit
The Peace Gardens
The Peace Gardens can be found in Lenton. The community space was designed to promote community cohesion and a peaceful location for reflection.
Read more: 9 of Nottinghamshire's most beautiful gardens to visit on a sunny day
The dove-shaped garden has expanded in recent years to cover healthy eating cookery sessions, mosaic tile making workshops, peace blanket making, lantern lit garden walks and other community-based activities. The garden plans were created by Ann Hope, a professional gardener who has connections to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
Giselle Kennedy, 32, of Wollaton, co-creator of the garden said, “Community gardens are places where people can eat a sandwich at lunch time, take time to think, or just be amongst nature, but crucially, they’re spaces where people can just be themselves. During the pandemic peak, many people were locked down but they didn’t have their own green space to visit. Community gardens were a lifeline during these difficult times, offering people with a place clear out the cobwebs. The Nottingham Peace Garden helps to promote community cohesion and peace, both of which are hugely important, now more than ever.”
She added: "This wholesome community space was sadly impacted by the pandemic, with many of the plants intended for planting dying during lockdown. The team behind the peace garden hope to revive the dove garden in the coming months and will be looking to involve the local community."
The Arkwright Meadows Community Garden
There is a lot to do at the Arkwright community garden including a vegetable garden, wildlife pond, fire pit and even a tandoor and cob oven. It also features an after school garden where local children can come and tend the beds to grow fruit and vegetables.
The garden has impressive polytunnels that house huge banana plants as well as a pond that is filled with frogs. The venue can also be hired as an alternative venue for meetings, training days, workshops or exercise classes.
Local residents in the Meadows established the garden in 2001 to transform the disused, rubbish-strewn field into a green space for visitors to use.
Windmill Community Gardens
The Windmill Community Gardens on the South end of Ascot Road is run by a group of local residents and helped by Groundwork Greater Nottingham. It is also the home of the Climate Friendly Gardeners Project which aims to promote food growing to help our changing climate.
The volunteers running the garden write a blog where visitors can keep up to date about any changes including the arrival of new flowers, wildlife and events. The residents are currently building an outdoor classroom using reclaimed materials.
The gardens have two small wildflower meadows, one annual and one perennial that feature plants such as cornflower, common poppy, corn chamomile, corn cockle, corn marigold and vetch. These plants not only look beautiful but attract pollinators, like bees, hover flies and butterflies to the garden.
The gardens are open Mondays 10am until 1pm and Thursdays 10am until 4pm
Bulwell Forest Garden
The Bulwell Forest Gardens started as a disused piece of land before being developed in 2011 by dedicated residents. A phased plan was developed, to include food growing and wildlife areas, a community orchard and outdoor kitchen.
The gardens also function as an outdoor classroom for nearby Cantrell Primary School who have an access gate through their playground. The volunteers' primary aim is to grow fruit and vegetables together as a community and share it out.
Bulwell Forest Garden is open four days a week, with volunteering opportunities in gardening and wildlife conservation. After Easter, Rainbow Stripes will be hosting singing, dancing and play for the under 5s followed by a wild walk in the woods and a mud kitchen.
The sessions, held every Friday, are supported by Nottingham City Council so they cost just £1 per child. There is no need to book in advance.
Sherwood community food gardens
The community food gardens in Sherwood were started by Rachel O' Mara and Liz Cordle. The pair started with some wildflower seeds that were planted to grow flowers and seeds in the gaps of the pavement around the car park.
The garden has been helped by Space Inclusive, a social enterprise that works with adults with learning disabilities. Some of the young people who attend the centre in Sherwood have made flags, shamrocks and painted stones to decorate the gardens, as well as helping Liz and Rachel keep the plants watered.
A volunteer from Sherwood Community Food Garden said: “Our two community gardens at Edingley Square and Sherwood Community Centre offer opportunities for local people to grow food organically, sustainably and to promote natural habitats for wildlife."
Both gardens are a mixture of small individual plots and shared spaces so there is a chance for people to have a space of their own as well as share in maintaining the rest of the garden with herb beds, fruit trees, willow, wormery, compost and soft fruit."
The garden has been awarded Green Flag status and this year the team is hoping for both gardens to be included. Plot holders can access the gardens any time and they are are also trying to encourage more volunteers along to their monthly working groups to help with maintenance and upkeep of the shared areas, on the first Sunday of each month from 11am to 1pm.
The gardens are a mixture of small individual plots and shared spaces where visitors can help to grow share herb beds, fruit trees, willow, wormery, compost and soft fruit. The group of organisers were previously known as Transition Sherwood with a view to helping the local communities become less dependent on fossil fuels, become more resilient, and reduce the impact on the environment
