Growing CommUnity

Just nine months ago I took a garden fork and spade along to a space beside a bus stop in South London and joined quite an extraordinary community. In the space of a couple of hours an assortment of people living in three or four terraces along the Landor Road, Stockwell came together and began growing their own vision.

We guerrilla gardened some long forgotten council flower beds. We dug up the weeds, cleared the dog poop and began planting  flowers, fruit and vegetable plants, all donated by the community. These thrived in the warm spring sunshine and with tending and watering from the community. This once unloved space, became a living, loved space, a place where the community gathered and where pedestrians loitered, watching seedlings sprout and grow into vegetables they would harvest later in the year.

The gardens stand beside a bus stop for the 322 bus route, so we named the project ‘The Edible Bus Stop.’ Initially the council were wary of what we had started, yet soon realised the community can, if responsible and organised enough, be left to do what is right for themselves. The council took interest in how, without any public funding we could do what public money could often not do. We strengthened a community, engaging the diversity that the community was built from. We took chances, we grew food (that could easily be over-harvested by passers by) we grew plants that could easily be vandalised, we vowed not to build fences or boundaries. We put our trust in the community and that trust was valued and reciprocated. On walls that once were regularly spray tagged, our community project had banished the taggers. People no longer took their dogs to soil the gardens, people began clearing litter, watering and planting their own plants – guerrilla gardening a guerrilla garden.

Soon we realised that we had unleashed something quite amazing. A space that enabled authentic engagement through activity, a space that grew and impressed beyond the people who lived in the locale. We proved many wrong with how we tackled the challenge and we learned from every experience we encountered. People heard about our little garden and wanted to know more. The media contacted us, and reported on our progress including  national and local papers, the BBC TV and radio who visited a long forgotten corner of south London.  We often wondered what we had done to receive such interest. On reflection we found that people were interested in our attitude; we said ‘yes’- ‘yes’ to a challenge we didn’t know if we would overcome, saying ‘yes’ to those looking to do the same, those looking for encouragement and inspiration, yes when it is easier to say no.

The garden flourished and we soon were kicking our heels in the fertile dirt for the next project. Rather than think small we thought big. With meager resources, apart from a wealth of creative talent and ‘can-do’ energy we created what is thought is the worlds largest International Parking Day project, a day where we helped people see how wasted space devoted to cars really is. In the meantime the council formally recognised our ‘bus stop’ endeavours and provided us with funding to re-landscape our gardens to maximise the potential of our edible garden space. Designs were drawn and the community was consulted on these. This is the design that will be built in the new year – the aim is to have it completed within the year of when we first started our humble project.

We are now working with other communities along the 322 bus route from where it starts in Clapham Common to where it finishes in Crystal Palace. The goal is to motivate and mentor communities to green the route, particularly areas near bus stops, to make the waiting a pleasure, rather than a pain. We won’t stop with that as there are so many more opportunities that we may be able to help with, even it its a friendly nudge in the right direction.

In the nine months we’ve learned much including; that you don’t have to ask permission, you don’t need experience or expertise, you don’t need money. You just need to get stuck in. The community is there, it just needs an invitation to become involved. We’ve proved how a to grow a community project that is truly rooted and supported by the community. One that has allies in the most unexpected places (including Clarence House..). Try it yourself, what’s there to lose? No, not much, but without such projects there is so much potential in the community that is otherwise lost.