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Advice needed
We are right at the beginning of starting a community garden. We want to create a place where people can meet and do some gentle gardening, hopefully involving the local primary school. Does anybody have any advice, experience, pitfalls to avoid? Also, any suggestions for a wildlife-friendly, low maintenance hedge and rabbit resistant plants....?
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What a lovely thing to do! How big is the garden to be? I'm guessing it'll have to be wheelchair friendly, so maybe some raised beds could be incorporated. Maybe get the kids involved in the design of the garden too. Planting veggies and herbs will provide good educational/cooking angle for the kids. Small trees, arches, arbours etc with climbers scrambling up them will add height - something often overlooked when designing a garden. A pond would be great for bringing in wildlife. It can be really small and shallow (don't want kids or animals drowning) but it's amazing how quickly frogs, damsel flies etc appear.
Re hedging, how about using wild roses (think they're called guelder roses?) they usually have pink flowers, sometimes white, with a wonderful scent. Or a mix of native hedging - hawthorn etc. Great for birds and insects, don't need regular trimming, and the rose thorns might help keep rabbits at bay (though no doubt the elf and safety lot will deem them to be too dangerous for kids. The thorns I mean, not the wabbits).
What a magnificent idea!
I think Beechgrove Garden have a lot of "community" projects which you might find interesting. Good luck!
Oh, thank you Angie4, some of your ideas had occurred to us, but others hadn't, 'specially the shallow pond and arbours - I shall add that to our 'ideas' list. Thanks Danae, I shall investigate Beechgrove.
What about the Greening Grey Britain initiative? They will have plenty of advice.
Dove suggested looking at this on a similar thread: http://grapeshillcommunitygarden.org/
Do you need public liability insurance for this project? Just a thought......in case someone drowns in two inches of pond water.