Measure of distance (equal to approximately half a mile) at which sheep remain picturesque.
The
Great from a distance but losing appeal the closer you get.
This highlights the difference between maintenance and nurture.
This is what for us (and a very good job they do).
Nur ture needs time, care and attentionbut most of all it needs love
This isn’t the mandate of any maintenance contract we have ever seen
No mixed use property development in the UK employed a gardener.
The maintenance approach to landscape looks a bit like this.
Every RHS & National Trust estate has a team of gardeners and volunteers. Their nurturing approach looks like this.
At NOMA we are uniquely positioned to bring horticulture and participation together, transforming NOMA into an even more vibrant and beautiful place to be.
Through mass participation and nurture we can transform our landscape into a garden of horticultural significance.
Over the last six years, our work within the neighbourhood places NOMA in a unique position to deliver this project and claim its place as the leading horticultural development in the UK.
This is far from a typical community gardening project. This is a wholesale evolution of our landscape masterplan and our placemaking strategy. To realise this ambition we needed to recruit 150 volunteer gardeners from occupiers and the local community.
The following pages outline the steps we took to build a beautiful ‘money can’t buy’ garden, galvanise a community and deliver a carbon positive engagement programme.
1 2 3 4 5
APPOINT A COMMUNITY HEAD GARDENER
AGREE A PLAN FOR TRANSFORMATION
To inspire, educate and lead a community of have-a-go horticulturists.
Taking us from a maintenance focused estate to a nurtured neighbourhood garden won’t be quick and it won’t be easy, but quick and easy don’t build great.
BUILD A SUITABLY BIG GARDEN SHED FOR A VERY BIG GARDEN A common space of uncommon beauty proudly in the middle of NOMA.
RECRUIT OUR GARDENERS
GARDEN
Encouraging hundreds of people to get their hands dirty is our raison d’etre.
Garden is a verb. Buying plants doesn’t build a garden any more than buying weights builds muscle. To garden is to graft.
Our head community gardener was Joe (I mean, obviously it is Joe).
Joe is a designer, maker and teacher, and already a familiar face across NOMA. Here he is outside New Century House. He built this little garden on his time off with a budget of £0. Imagine what he will achieve when we make this his job!
Joe has recently delivered a garden on the roof of Redfern.
He is also responsible for the tomato farm in Dantzic and the planting in our edible Christmas Tree.
He is also pictured here building Dinosaur which he designed.
Outside of NOMA he is best known as a potter and an educator and will be producing all the plant pots we need around the estate.
Joe’s passion for what he does is infectious.
Kev from Planit has been working on NOMA since he designed Sadler’s Yard. He masterminded all the big moves on site, overseeing the tree nursery and acting as quality control. Kev ensures that we aren’t flying headlong into the landscape without a plan. The garden will improve by increments; 1% better each day adds up.
A 1% daily improvement adds up to a compound improvement of 3,800% over a year. Or, to put it another way, 40 times better than we were when we started.
A city is never finished.
A garden is never finished.
We are never finished.
This will be the home for gardening at NOMA.
Harvesting rainwater and providing a place for volunteers to store belongings, pick up tools and wash their hands at the end of a shift. This will be demountable to make use of available spaces around the estate.
We want to enter our garden shed into ‘Shed of the Year’ (yes, there is such a thing).
At NOMA we have involved 600 people in building The Pilcrow.
During lockdown, over 300 people participated in our running race with no route, and no winners or losers.
Engaging people in place has become a speciality for us. We will be using a tried and tested combination of digital and traditional marketing channels to engage our audience and tell the story of a growing neighbourhood. Our target audience will be occupiers followed by our existing network of community groups.
We are using the word garden to refer to both the strategy for engagement and the place we are building.
Both require a process of nurture that will flow through everything we hope to do at NOMA and set us apart from every other Manchester neighbourhood. The rest of this document introduces the ways in which this will manifest.
Every week we plan to have 100 hours of hands on gardening taking place across NOMA consisting of volunteer activity overseen by Standard Practice working to a plan developed with Planit to make NOMA uniquely beautiful.
Our goal is to promote active citizenship and a sense of belonging at NOMA, reminding our occupiers and local community that NOMA is their neighbourhood.
We appreciate that to garden is to graft and all volunteers will be rewarded at key milestones.
50 hours of gardening is rewarded with a tote bag or cap. 100 hours of service receives a money can’t buy work jacket.
All our gardeners receive a healthy discount at Dinosaur and Sadler’s Cat.
Our cornerstone events are family friendly carnivals that celebrate the creativity and individuality of our local communities.
The annual dog show will return but cast its net beyond four legged friends and into the biodiversity of the city.
A weekend of live music, delicious food and world class beer is the essential recipe for Sadler’s Yard Summer Jam. Featuring workshops, talks and craft stalls.
A winter market in Sadler’s Yard with all the winter trimmings, around our Winter tree.
NOMA PUBLIC ART PROGRAMME
GOOD PUBLIC ART ISN’T DECORATION
Good public art isn’t decoration.
At NOMA we believe that through art we can foster a productive dialogue with our surrounding neighbourhood and urban landscape.
At NOMA we believe that through art, we can foster a productive dialogue with our surrounding neighbourhood and urban landscape.
We will commission and produce world-class art projects on and around NOMA, from emerging voices to those well established, sparking the dialogue that is an essential element of city life.
We commission and produce world-class art projects on and around NOMA, from emerging voices to those well established sparking the dialogue that is an essential element of city life.
Our public arts programme will be curated by NOMA in partnership with Castlefield Gallery.
Our public arts programme is curated by NOMA in partnership with Castlefield Gallery.
• Quarterly changing installations
• Community arts programme
• Exhibition launches
• Quarterly changing installations
• Community arts programme
• Exhibition launches
AT THE OF P SPEEDLANTS
We are excited to launch our children’s gardening club – The Locusts.
The Locusts are a band of gardening grafters between the ages of 4 and 10.
The number of families living in the city centre without a garden has exploded in recent years. This club allows urban kids to explore their wilder side.
They’ll meet every week without fail, rain or shine.
These children like to get their hands dirty.
Here are the first three sessions:
EAT THE GARDEN
Kids that grow vegetables eat vegetables.
Introducing incredible edibles.
Make soil. Learn what goes into making a healthy planting medium.
Spend the morning in the nursery planting seeds for NOMA and marvel at the unfolding magic of gardening.
We have calculated that it takes about 200 hours of investment to transform a 10m2 patch of land into a garden.
Coincidentally, research has shown that it takes about 200 hours of investment in the space of a few months to move a stranger into being a good friend.
We will be holding monthly ‘speed mating’ gardening sessions as a key part of our volunteer programme. KEEP
At NOMA we will have a plant nursery containing trees and perennials for future use around the estate.
Our first wave of activity will be to grow a complete A-Z of British trees.
Generally, this space will be ‘back of house’ providing an area for our garden volunteers to get changed and equipment to be stored.
At numerous points throughout the year, we will open up the nursery to the public for talks, events and educational activities.
We’ll probably find ourselves with more plants than we can accommodate so will be holding occasional ‘Pot Luck’ plant sales too.
• A base for our gardening efforts
• Educational opportunities
• Trees trees trees!
The property sector have started to adopt the idea of hives on roofs in a big way. On the whole, this is a positive move.
Generally speaking the working model follows the standard landlord/tenant relationship – we provide the accommodation and you pay a rental agreement in honey.
This is a reductive way of viewing the role of pollinators in our cities.
We need to view bees and other pollinators not as tenants but as part of the development team. They are working with us on the landscape, and they are a vital part of building a better neighbourhood.
• Accommodation for pollinators
• Educational opportunities
• Non-human participants in our gardening team
Our garden is good for non-human animals.
The recent increase in plant species and a decisive shift towards moving in step with nature are cornerstones of our approach.
Plant species are selected to provide grazing and habitat for pollinators and our gardening practices are sympathetic to non-human environmental considerations.
Our garden is managed organically and no pesticides are used at any time.
• Natural and built homes and hives
• A seasonal approach
• Organic practices
OUR GARDEN IS GOOD FOR YOU
Exposure to fresh air and sunlight, relaxing and repetitive tasks and even contact with harmless bacteria in soil can help to release serotonin in the brain.
NOMA is at the heart of the bustling city centre but our garden presents moments of tranquillity and the opportunity to slow things down a bit.
Take time to move at the speed of plants.
• Gardening workshops
• Peace gardens
• Outdoor fitness and wellbeing classes
The NOMA Horticultural Youth Programme is a paid employment opportunity for local youth (approximately ages 16 to 21) focused on skills-building and leadership development through civic engagement, arts and culture, ecological horticulture initiatives, public programs and strategic partnerships.
Teens gain professional skills and handson experience as horticultural practitioners, while building connections with other initiatives across the city.
• Route to employment
• Skills and training
• Investment in people
Educational programs at NOMA are rooted in the legacy of ingenuity, forward-thinking and collaborative spirit that is central to our placemaking strategy.
NOMA school partnerships will be collaborations that bring together young people, educators, classroom teachers, and creative cultural workers to unite in civic-minded and socially conscious hands-on learning through our landscape.
• MMU
• RHS Bridgewater
• Manchester Museum
THE GROUN
At NOMA we are proud of the unusual species we can cultivate across the neighbourhood.
Most plants have a name plate already, and these will be translated to a full list of plant species on our website.
Our aim is to hold plant collections of UK national interest and empower our volunteer gardeners to show off plants that are looking particularly spectacular.
• Sitting proudly front and centre on the website
• Sponsor a plant across the estate with proceeds supporting our Horticultural Youth Programme
• Regular social media spotlights on special species
Making things has been in our DNA at NOMA since we enlisted the help of Manchester’s leading creative talent to build a pub.
Our on site workshop will tackle everything we need to keep the garden going, and throughout the year we will have opportunities to make gardening tools bespoke to the needs of NOMA.
• Terracotta plant pots
• Greenwood dibbers
• Bird houses
The Pilcrow reimagined as the ‘Manchester Centre for Urban Horticulture’
