Lavender Place Community Gardens Guided Walk

11 Vegetable beds: these raised beds grow a mixture of annual and perennial vegetables and are tended by volunteers who share the digging, watering and weeding as well as the produce. You are very welcome to join in!

At either end of the sets of vegetable beds are: 12 Fruiting trellis: these provide support for climbing fruit such as blackberries, loganberries, tayberries and grapes.

guided walk

Lavender Place Community Gardens

Looking towards the Police Station, you can see:

These gardens are in the space that was left when the Civic Centre was demolished in 2017. The whole area is going to be redeveloped, but in the meantime it has been transformed into a community garden growing a wide range of fruit and vegetables.

13 Community beds: these beds have been created and are being cultivated by members of the Nepalese community based at The Forgotten British Gurkha. We are talking to other community groups who should be joining us soon–watch this space!

The low-carbon permaculture garden was designed by RISC’s Food4Families project to showcase sustainable food growing and gives practical ideas for tackling the climate emergency in your own garden. Have a look at our website for further information and links.

14 Compost toilet: made from re-used wooden pallets and a re-cycled polycarbonate roof to provide light. Compost toilets reduce your water use and can produce valuable nutrients for your garden. The urine drains to a soakaway (could be collected and diluted 1:8 with water to make a great plant feed–aka liquid gold–or compost activator).

Although our solids are periodically flushed down a toilet they could be composted to make ‘humanure’.

In 19th century the area centred on Hosier St was a warren of courtyards, dating back to the Tudors, and Victorian terraces. Many were named after plants: Cherry Court, Plum Court, Lavender St, Lemon Court and disappeared in the 1970s when the area was redeveloped to make way for the IDR, The Hexagon and Broad St Mall. Lavender Place was a courtyard on the site of the present herb garden.

Many community groups, including gardeners from The Forgotten British Gurkha, already use the area and we are one of the venues for Open for Art, Wild About Reading, Heritage Open Days and Reading Fringe activities, as well as workshops and regular drop-in gardening sessions.

If your group would like some space to garden in, or have an event you would like to use the space for, please put your contact details on the contact sheet and we’ll get back to you.

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Reading Borough Council (RBC) believes the world is now clearly in the midst of a climate emergency and that more concerted and urgent action is needed at local, national and international level to protect our planet for future generations. As such, this Council commits to playing as full a role as possible – leading by example as well as by exhortation – in achieving a carbon neutral Reading by 2030.

26 February 2019 ReadingCAN (Climate Action Network), third Reading Climate Change Strategy (2020-2025)

Lavender Place Community Gardens sustainable à zero carbon à permaculture entrance via stairs to left of Hexagon Box Office, Queens Walk, RG1 7UA

supported by

www.lavenderplace.org.uk

www.facebook.com/LavenderPlaceGardens 8info@lavenderplace.org.uk

Please follow the numbered markers for a self-guided walk of the gardens, starting from the massive concrete buttress supporting the Hexagon roof.

1 VegTrug: accessible gardening for people with reduced mobility; the intention is to provide a range of fruit and leaves to nibble, plus flowers and herbs to add to drinks or to make into teas.

Behind and to the right of the VegTrug is a long mound: 2 Large hügelkultur bed: a hügelkultur (German for ‘hill culture’) uses logs, branches and other biomass from the site to make a mound which is covered with turfs; edible shrubs and perennial veg and herbs are planted in pockets of compost and the whole bed is covered in newspaper and a woodchip mulch to control weeds and keep the soil moist. As the wood rots it will create a nutrient-rich, moistureretentive raised bed.

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3 1440 litre water butt: re-used container previously used to import orange juice concentrate. This is cost-effective way to harvest a large volume of rainwater from the Hexagon roof and reduce the carbon footprint–a lot of energy is used to purify and pump drinking water to our homes. It is a waste to use that pure drinking water for plants. Especially as they prefer rain water!

Head towards the bottom of the stairs and you come to: 4 Keyhole bed: this was constructed from bricks rescued from a building site and filled with turf from the new beds. It is used for flowers to attract pollinators and butterflies.

Continue past the keyhole bed to: 5 Forest garden: the design copies a natural temperate woodland but fills it with a wide range of useful trees, shrubs, perennials and climbers: a woodchip path loops round the tubs with the fruit trees–since this is a ‘meanwhile’ garden the trees are not planted into the ground so that they can move when the area gets redeveloped. The fruit bushes have been planted into the ground within the loop, as we’ll be able to dig them up or take cuttings when the time comes to move.

Pause at the far end of the loop and look over at:

Performance area: currently a simple woodchip circle, we are developing plans for a raised amphitheatre for community use.

Continue round the loop, alongside: 6 Compost bins: made from pallets, these take all the weeds and plant waste from the site, as well as coffee grounds and other compostable waste from The Hexagon. Some of the bays hold woodchip, manure and cardboard for use on the beds.

Past the compost bins, there is another low mound covered in plants: 7 Small hügelkultur bed: this second hugelkultur also has self-seeded flowers relocated from the vegetable beds.

Turn round to find:

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8 Water butts: Intermediate Bulk Containers (IBCs) used to transport liquids and are now storing water for use in the gardens. Re-using materials is preferable to re-cycling because energy is not required to turn waste plastic into new products.

There is a kiwi plant growing up the set nearest the Hexagon and a grape vine and Chinese yams growing up the other set.

Between the two sets of IBCs are: 9 Herb garden: these beds are inspired by Islamic horticulture and were designed and planted by the children of Deenway Montessori School. They are arranged around an ancient olive tree, which produced a very good crop last autumn. The Hexagon bar staff have been known to nip out for some mint to add to theatre-goers’ Pimm’s. Look out for the different varieties of lavender.

10 Pergola: constructed from sweet chestnut which resists rot without the need for toxic preservative, this seating area provides a peaceful spot for outdoor lessons, meetings or just relaxing after a hard session of gardening. Vines and hop bines have been planted to provide shade in the summer (and hopefully grapes in the autumn).

An important aim of the garden is to demonstrate a more sustainable lifestyle and how a garden can help reduce our environmental impact, rather than add to the problem.

For example, gardens often use large amounts of ‘embedded’ energy which contribute to CO2 emissions and the global climate crisis. Energy used to: heat greenhouses (your own or the nurseries which grow the plants you buy), manufacture artificial fertiliser or hard landscaping materials such as cement and paving, transport plants and materials, purify and pump the precious drinking water we use to irrigate our gardens, or dispose of green waste.

By adopting the slogan: rethink, reduce, reuse, renew, recycle we can limit our environmental footprint. The sustainable features of the Lavender Place Community Gardens can easily be adapted for your own homes and gardens. Visit our website for links and further information 8www.lavenderplace.org.uk.