As readers of this Forum will know, gardening is one of my things, and this year I am working with Iris of Grow Mayow helping her promote various events she is planning as part of the 2012 Chelsea Fringe. However, for various personal reasons, we've had to scale back much of what we had hoped to do. Nonetheless, I have posted some thoughts on beating the hosepipe ban, which I hope Pen will be able to use.Lovely Pen (aka the Sydenham Town Centre Website creator and Frock Cycle) needs content re gardening and Green thing please email her anything and everything garden related.
Pen - please can you talk about the Kirkdale Village street beautification project, we have some funds to get some planters placed along the high street and we are formulating a community green figures team to plant it and maintain it.
However, I think too many people think gardening is something they won't have to pay for - that they will be able to find some group of volunteers who will do it for nothing. Nobody in their right mind would plan to get house repairs done for nothing, and professionals will only offer a limited amount of their time pro bono. I think it must be that people think of gardening either as unskilled, or somehow done by comfortably retired community minded volunteers who don't need to worry about paying for rent and other essentials.
Gardening to a reasonable, reliable standard depends on people who know what they are doing and can commit to it. They will probably have invested a fair bit of their time in learning what to do, and getting proper qualifications. So, whether it's your own garden you care about, or the making the space outside your shop front attract customers, please consider paying people to do it well.
