What we do in Horticulture sessions

The members of the Garden Project at Start have planned, designed and begun to create a ‘Gallery Garden’ at Start. This all began back in 2004 with ideas to smarten up the land adjacent to the building; it was originally the cemetery for the Wesleyan church back in the 19th century. Some of the old tombstones have been respectively laid near the entrance to the garden, a reminder of the legacy of this amazing building.

The garden group have been supported throughout by the other projects on site plus the Start management. The draft design plans were shared with the local community and their suggestions along with those of the staff and artist members were incorporated into the final architectural drawings fro the garden.

Ideas for the garden and the planting designs were greatly informed by visits to existing gardens, for example community gardens Salford and Manchester, Ness Botanical gardens on the Wirral, and attendance at the Tatton flower show. However most of our inspiration and learning came from our monthly training visits to Tatton Park during 2006 to 2007. The staff there were so informative and generous with their knowledge.

In 2006 the perimeter fence was erected, in the mean time the garden group had began tidying up existing beds, and creating some new ones, like the topiary garden inspired by our educational visits to Tatton Park.

This has been a wonderfully productive year for the garden project. We’ve seen the geodome greenhouse erected, the cabin is in place and more growing beds have been created in the main garden area.

There have been some fantastic highlights such as the wonderful flower display around the greenhouse, with many of the plants grown from seed, and a few hiccups too, such as the tomatoes in our cottage plot that never ripened due to the dull wet August we had in 2007. The forever resourceful garden group made the most of the green tomatoes and enjoyed them as homemade chutney at our harvest festival celebration.

We have raised beds in the car park with an impressive display of grasses and cordalines and the Rockery is completed too, it proudly spells out ‘Start’ in vibrant green succulent plants. It was quite an achievement and very worthwhile, one of the members said “When people go past on the A6 on the bus, or in a taxi or just walking, they can look and see there was nothing there when we started and now look at it there is loads’ going on now”.

That really sums up the garden project; lots going on with everyone involved.

Elizabeth has noticed a huge growth of gardening skills and individual
confidence in some group members. A more detailed report of both individual and the gardens progress has been captured by Rae Story who has taken photos and recorded interviews with the group. Her findings will be published as a research document later this year.

Interest in the garden project has expanded, allowing us to offer another
session a week, and Neighbourhood learning in Deprived Communities,
Learning Skills funding has enabled us to bring in horticulture tutors
to run the sessions, as a long-term member commented “Well no disrespect to you Elizabeth, but they are the experts, they have all the expert knowledge”.

Consequently Elizabeth now has time to focus on planning and the future developments for the project, such as; bringing on board accredited courses fro Garden Group members; organising the hedge row planting day, and the construction of vegetable beds. There is a lot more to be done towards creating our ‘Gallery Garden’.

But perhaps the main achievement of this group has been the steadfast commitment to their vision and what they, as individuals have gained along the way, this is best summed up by Arthur a group member:
“I look at the things much more colourfully now, things were dismal and grey before I came on this project, it was just my spirits were really low. I used to be a miserable bleeder! It’s brought me out. I’m more interested in things now, I’m creating things, in my own way, the plans then the action of the plans, I’ve got lots going on now. It’s our project and we can have our own say in it, and we can make our own decisions”.

And in the process they make a beautiful garden for everyone to enjoy and a community to be proud of.