Spruce up your neighbourhood
Community gardening
Community gardening brings people together – from growing flowers to growing your own food. It’s a great opportunity to meet people and make new friends in your community whilst increasing biodiversity in your area. If you live near a bare or unloved piece of land and have an idea about how your community can bring it to life - apply for our community gardening scheme today. You may be eligible for seed funding from Redbridge Council to get you started and you must adopt the space for a minimum of 12 months.
How to start a community garden
Step one: Find the space
Identify an area you’d like to adopt as a community garden and think about what you’d like to plant and how you would manage the garden.
Step two: Find the people
Especially if you’re looking to adopt a large area, identify a group of people to help with the gardening. Nominate a ‘lead’ gardener who will complete the application on behalf of your group and be the main point of contact with us.
Step three: Complete the application form
Please ensure that you complete all sections of the form, if you have any questions or require any assistance get in touch with us.
Once we’ve received your application, we’ll check land ownership for your proposed community garden. If your application is approved, we’ll ask you to complete some Health and Safety documents including a risk assessment to ensure that participants are safe while working in your community garden.
Step four: Get gardening
We’ll let you know when you are permitted to start works and then it’s over to you!
Step five: Share your progress
We’ll ask you to send us regular progress photos and would love to share your successes to inspire others. We can also put you in touch with other gardening groups in the borough to exchange knowledge and ideas.
You can find more information about community gardening via Incredible Edible and The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS).
More volunteering opportunities
Community gardening in Redbridge parks:
Redbridge has a huge range of parks and open spaces, which means that there are plenty of opportunities to get involved with many different activities. To find out more about volunteering in Redbridge parks, visit the Vision website.
Tree planting:
Trees for Cities run regular tree planting and maintenance sessions in parks and schools throughout the year. Sign up to their newsletter to hear about upcoming sessions in your area.
Looking for community litter picking? Click here.
