Funding for community gardens
Posted by John Zeaiter on
One of the more intriguing articles that popped up on our Facebook Page this week was a link from the UK's Daily Express. The article was concerning grants made available from the UK's Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) for community groups to set up gardens. According to the piece, the RHS is exceedingly generous in helping to set up a number of community-style gardens, with the aim of promoting sustainability and knowledge of gardens in general.
Libby Goodacre, RHS Regional Development Manager, said: We have received great feedback from communities who benefited from the scheme last year and it has been fantastic to see the projects evolve. She added that helping local gardening groups was not only achieving the education aims of the RHS but also assisting the community groups increase their membership. To be able to provide hands-on expertise, at a local level, and funding to groups who need the money has been so satisfying. I can't wait to start again this year and help community gardeners and communities grow., she said.
Now this is an idea that we at Evergreen Growers fully support. Indeed a concept that peak horticultural body makes funds available for community gardens, partly for education purposes, partly to foster sustainability is one that most people would agree has merit.
Do we have something similar in Australia readers? An initiative that promotes landcare as well as sustainability through gardening?
We posed the question, would a similar scheme work in Australia? As a reader pointed out on our Facebook Page,
Community gardens perform wonderful work. I can agree with that sentiment as the community gardens in my hometown are very proactive with plenty of kids learning the ancient arts of seed saving, composting and garden maintenance.
As we see it, financial support from a peak horticultural body would only serve to boost this invaluable education and provide that link to ancient skills that many young people lack the opportunity to learn.
But we'd like to hear from you. Do you have a community gardens in your region? Would they benefit from an injection of funds from a peak Australian horticultural body? Perhaps this is one way to secure the future for our kids: by education about caring for the precious land.