Hackney Wick Garden: 2009

Monday, 28 September 2009

Paul's Canalside Sunflowers

Thanks to Paul for all the sunflower seeds he planted along the Hackney Wick stretch of the Lea River Navigational Canal.

He has brightened up many a ramblers stroll and cyclists journey.

Please Hackney Wick - get inspired by this an start making seed bombs ready for the spring. If you have any spare bulbs - get planting right now!!

You too can make all our lives a whole lot more beautiful!!

Saturday, 5 September 2009

Hackney Wick Guerilla Gardeners Strike Again!!

With only a few short weeks to go to the Hackney Wick Festival 2009 - our VERY friendly Guerrilla Gardeners have delivered a stunning raised bed for us!

Thank you to everyone involved!!! You have really made this little corner of the Wick beautiful!!

Please - Hackney Wick - go for a lovely stroll over the weekend - and spend a few minutes on the new wide corner of Berkshire Road & Wallis Road. There's a fragrant bay tree surrounded by loads of busy lizzies & pansies!

Hackney Wick Guerrilla Gardeners - we all love you!!!

Wednesday, 15 April 2009

Sunflower Avenue Through Hackney Wick!!

This summer - we would love to attempt an avenue of sunflowers all the way from the Hackney Wick Community Centre - in the Eastway - through to the footbridge at the end of Wallis Road.

Imaging a beautiful path of yellow all along Osborne, Berkshire & Wallis Roads right over into Viccie Park!?!

Some of the residents of Leabank Square - about half way - have already agreed to plant along the main Berkshire Road part of the avenue. Terry - the manager of the Hackney Wick Community Centre - has lovingly agreed to kick it all off at the Community Centre. And Tom & his lovely family at the Wallis Road end have fantastically agreed to plant some along the tall brick wall.

So - please everyone else!!! Grab a bag of seeds at Lidl, B&Q or the Pound Shop - and start planting all along this avenue! It will bring us all together in such a great path of happy yellow!!

Monday, 16 March 2009

Spring Onions 2009

How's this for some excellent Guerrilla Gardening?!

Some fantastic gardener has planted about 100 sets of spring onions all along the Hackney Wick beginning of the Greenway - just before the Hackney Wick Pill Box Bunker.

Thank you very much for adding such delicious flavour to our picnic on our monthly trip to see how far the Olympic Stadium has come along. These are the milder flavoured spring onions - so the kids tucked in with as much relish as us adults!

Come on Hackney Wick - let's start planting much more food all over The Wick!!

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