Community gardening in Forest Gate and beyond

Forest Gate Community garden stalwart, Derek Smith, surveys community gardening in the Forest Gate locality and shows how you can get involved.

There are three community gardens in the Forest Gate area. Forest Gate Community Garden, the Up Garden, and Manor Park Community Garden. The latter is not in Forest Gate, but in easy walking distance, either through Manor Park cemetery or along the Flats.

All three of the gardens are on land owned by the Council. Forest Gate Community Garden and Manor Park have leases. So both have to justify their existence by what they do in the space to ensure the lease is renewed. While The UP Garden has simply taken on the upkeep of a neglected space, with none of the hassle of lease renewal. 

Forest Gate Community Garden

The garden is on Earlham Grove, about 100m west of Woodgrange Road. It is bordered by Earlham Grove, Sprowston Road, and the Gateway estate along its eastern edge. The space had been a hostel for abused women until 2006, when it was abandoned to buddleia and sycamores. In 2013 a group approached the Council to set it up as a community garden. The group finally got a lease in 2015 and worked to clear rubbish and buddleia, build raised beds, a pond, and finally put in plants. The garden opened to the public in 2016. Since then it has run music events, various celebrations for Winter, Christmas and Spring, art activities, children’s activities, as well as regular plant sales.

 The fence was originally wooden boards with a colourful mural. When part of it blew down in the winter of 2022, the opportunity was taken to erect a wire fence, making the garden more visible, and less intimidating. A prized part of the garden are the two large, colourful mosaics, one a snail, the other a frog

Forest Gate WI have met here, Woodcraft Folk use it in the warmer months, as do local artists. There are three paid, part-time workers: a gardener, an admin worker, and an outreach worker with all other helpers volunteers. The garden is a charity, open on Fridays, Saturdays and Sunday morning, always with volunteers in attendance. The philosophy is to be more than a garden, having regular events with music, art, food, and activities for children.

 

Garden volunteers looks after some of the raised bed in the Forest Gate area too, going out on Sunday mornings to maintain them. In September 2023, the garden put in a standpipe to provide water for the garden, though it uses collected rain water as much as possible. In 2019 the garden was awarded the accolade ‘Outstanding’ by the RHS in the community garden category.

The garden’s opening times are currently: Fridays: 10 to 3pm, Saturdays: 10 to 3pm and Sundays: 10 to 12 noon. These are currently under review and any changes will be announced on the garden’s website – see below.

 https://www.fgcommunitygarden.org

The UP Garden

This was created from an abandoned laundry yard in Eric Close. The yard is part of a Council estate, managed by Swan Housing Association, in the very north of Forest Gate, just a few yards from the borough boundary with Waltham Forest. The yard had become an eyesore, overgrown and with evidence of drug users. It was crying out for a new purpose. With many eager to make it happen.

As the land is owned by the Council, they agreed to start the transformation. In December 2021, the Council did an initial clearance, including fencing off an area of Japanese knotweed. Then residents took over, with much of the funding for this coming from GLA, with substantial amounts from the Council and Swan. The local community donated furniture and materials, as well as muscle. With much volunteer effort and various donations, raised beds were built and painted, along with sheds for tools and other items. Seating and tables for picnics, art and just sitting around and gossiping, were put in, as well as an undercover space.

 

The garden opened in October 2022. Across the length of the rear of the garden is a mural in neon coral (pinkish red), black and blue telling us: The Only Way is UP! The UP in the name denotes the garden as a source of growth and creativity. There is a wealth of colour all over the garden, neon coral, blues, yellows, on the benches, tabletops, and planters.

The UP Garden is now overseen by a small Committee of local residents. Within a year of launch, it won the RHS and BBC Growing Together award as an outstanding example of community gardening, and was featured on The ONE Show and got a mention on Gardeners Question Time. The garden runs regular activities with music and nature-themed art for children. There are many raised beds, some growing vegetables from a regular gardening group, and one with a difference, where a local family is growing tea.

The UP Garden is very much part of its community. Its north boundary is a block of the Swan estate, with the rest of the estate close by. Nearby are streets of terraced houses, the occupants drawn in to the activities of the garden. The estate itself is rather drab, and so with its colour and energy, the garden has been welcomed with open arms.

 

The garden doesn’t have running water but collects rainwater in a huge water butt fed from the guttering of the estate block and other smaller butts here and there. Water is precious, use it wisely, users are told.  The garden is open every day from 9.00-ish until 6pm or sunset (whichever is earlier), unlocked and locked up by a rota of volunteers but unmonitored in between, The UP Garden trusting the community - to whom it belongs.

https://www.theupgarden.org

Manor Park Community Garden

Manor Park Community Garden is on Manor Park Road, E12, a few minutes from the station. The garden was established by residents in 2012 on Council ground. As the area was a former garage, the ground was very polluted with petroleum products and asbestos, hence the need for raised beds and for soil renewal. Originally, individual volunteers had a raised bed each. Now, the beds are more communal.

 

The garden was transformed in 2020 when a group of locals won a bid for a Community Assembly grant to re-invigorate the garden. More raised beds were built, with a covered area, and the Council were persuaded to put in a planted area outside the garden which the garden maintains. Before the outside bed was in place, cars would park directly against the fence, obscuring the garden. The outside bed, apart from being attractive, prevents this, and is a welcoming feature. Within the garden itself, the emphasis has been to create an edible garden with fruit trees, berry bushes, herbs, vegetables and various flowers.

The garden has a water tap just outside the garden on the Council estate which overlooks the space. It aims to be a social focus, a quiet space, or a festive one where locals can run fun activities. Like The Up Garden, Manor Park Community Garden opens on a trust basis, without the need for volunteers to be present, from 8am to 6pm. There’s a rota for garden openers, who also close the garden. The garden shuts in winter when there would be few visitors but opens again in the early spring until the turn of the year.

 

In the nearby streets are over 30 flowerbeds, in the Durham Road Conservation Zone. In 2013 they were either empty or filled with weeds. The community, including community garden volunteers, won a grant to put in shrubs, perennials and bulbs. They now maintain them, seeing them as wildlife corridors, decorating the streets and providing insect life.

Manor Park Community Garden is a charity, run by volunteers, overseen by the charity trustees.

 

 https://manorparkcommunitygarden.co.uk