Hackney Wick Garden: April 2008

Can you believe all this cold weather?!

I've heard of April Showers - but even this has got to be extreme.

Anyway - it makes for good pictures though - so let's not grumble too much!

Whats this all about then?

What makes us happy?

A smile from a stranger?
Dipping your toe in the sea?
A bird landing nearby…… and staying?
A nice cuppa?

Probably all these things at the same time!!

But it has been proven by some very smart people – that plants, grass, flowers, lawns, fruit trees, bushes, vegetable plants, creepers - hey – even weeds – make all of us very happy!!

We all need more natural colours, smells, & greenery all around us here in Hackney Wick.

Hackney Council do a lot of planting & gardening – but we all rather want our council tax to be spent on cleaning up dog doo & filling potholes in cycle lanes!!

So……… what some of us have started doing is planting flowers, tomatoes, dandelions, cherry trees, runner beans, willows, blackberry bushes, ivy, fig trees, wild flower meadows, anything – all over Hackney Wick.

It is the easiest thing to do yourself:

- Next time you have a salad – separate, save & grow some tomato seeds.

- Get a bag of cherries from the market – enjoy – save the pips & throw them over the fence of some derelict waste ground.

- Get some packets of wildflower or meadow seeds from the 1 pound shop or Lidl (anywhere cheap) – make some seed bombs & throw them into any patch of unplanted Hackney Wick.

- If you’re feeling flush one week – pop down to the nursery along the canal (or even B&Q next to Hackney Marshes) & buy a tree for a fiver – get it planted as close to the sidewalk as possible – to shelter & shade the rest of us in a couple of years.

- If you have a bit more gardening knowledge than the rest of us – take some cuttings, saplings, & prunings from your (or nice neighbour’s) garden – cultivate them & plant them somewhere else in Hackney Wick.

- Maybe – pop down to Columbia Road Market on a Sunday morning – and get loads of ivy very cheaply & plant them below unattractive fences & walls – so that we can see greenery – not unintelligible graffiti & rusted metal.

Wouldn’t it be great to make Hackney Wick the most green, beautiful, colourful, delicious (free fruit, beans, tomatoes, herbs, berries, etc) & natural place to live in any city?!

Everyone’s favourite gardening luvvie – Alan Titsmarsh – says that there are no such things as weeds – only plants in unexpected places.

Lets all start planting loads more weeds in Hackney Wick!!!

Hackney Wick Garden

Friday, 18 April 2008

Where Has Spring Gone?

Whats this all about then?

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