Cultivation Street 2016 Stories
Cultivation Street is Britain’s national gardening campaign backed by the horticultural industry which promotes community and school gardening. Working alongside National Garden Gift Vouchers, the Cultivation Street campaign aims to reward passionate and dedicated community gardeners and tell the stories of successes to inspire others into their own gardening projects.
There are lots of different garden designs and spaces. Maybe your struggling with designing your garden. Here are five great stories taken from a range of different 2016 entries.
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Oasis, Birmingham
Mr Doogan’s mission was to rejuvenate the area into a beautiful garden full of colour, personality and to provide a haven for wildlife. He wanted to create an area for all to enjoy.
This is his story:
In 2015 I was granted permission from Birmingham City council to garden a piece of their land outside my house. Its 80 square meters! Which is far bigger than my own garden. I wanted to do something positive to the land. I noticed when walking around my city it’s very depressing how so many front gardens are being paved over.
This is my way of fighting back and reversing the trend. All of the work is done by myself and I also fund the project. People who pass by think it’s beautiful and this gives me a sense of satisfaction. This spring I built a pergola for climbing roses and clematis. All my spare time is taken up by the garden and it has become a real hobby and has turned into a big part of my life. All my hard work is definitely worth it when I look at the stunning results!
Meet the residents of the Voyage of Life garden.
Starting in 2014, our 30-strong community volunteer group has turned a disused and overgrown area into a “pocket park” right in the heart of our burgh. To fit with our coastal location the theme of the garden is the Voyage of Life.
Tom Campbell- the chairman of Brighter Bervie.
The hard-working gardeners, Mary, Jim, Michael and Phyllis.
We have a feature fitting-out basin which is a sunken circular lawn and acts as a social gathering area for our voyagers. The voyagers navigate past waves of grasses breaking onto a shingle beach planted with alpines to reach a peaceful haven. Their voyage ends by being guided by the lighthouse sitting on a grassy hill
This year, now that the plants have become established, the garden can at last be appreciated as it was intended. Our volunteers are kept busy tending to the plants, showing visitors around, and arranging events in the garden, just like our first birthday party.
A group of pupils wanted to leave a legacy to the school and came up with the idea a garden that would be a place for children to chill out. They made a great start but ran out of time. Fast forward to September 2015. The head teacher of the school wanted the garden to continue. With successful funding and a class of 30 Year 4 children have almost finished our Smelly Garden.
We have researched various herbs, planted vegetables and have done a lot of hard landscaping. We have attracted more children to support the completion of the garden. The head teacher now runs a lunchtime club and special curriculum time is given to learn in the garden. We have now added onions, strawberries, beans, peas, leeks, garlic, potatoes, carrots and a lot of tomatoes to our garden. 
Next year we want to grow plants from seed, harvest some of our seeds, create a green house, learn more about composting and hopefully eat out crops. Our biggest achievement has been constructing our garden from scratch, and using 30 children to do it, with funding we’ve raised ourselves with no previous gardening experience.
Meet Neil Moy (holding the newspaper) he’s the Garden Club Leader who has lots of gardening experience. Mr Moy is surrounded by some of the Holiday Home Owners who attend his gardening club at Caister Holiday Park. They were very excited to inject some colour around their homes using inventive planting ideas.
Caister Holiday Park has its very own Garden Club, where our Holiday Home Owners come along and help with various projects around the park helping to create beautiful displays for everyone to see. They start by helping to plant seeds in March when the season starts and continue to support Neil (our amazing gardener) and his wonderful grounds team right through till November. We started this club back in 2012 with just a handful of members and over the years it has grown into a lovely community club where many come along and love getting involved.
Caister Owners are really proud of their work and we are proud of them and feel they deserve credit for all they do. Neil has also helped provide our local villages with beautiful floral displays.
Caister Holiday Park were joint winners in the ‘Small Space’ category for 2016!
That Secret Garden is a Small Space communal garden. 12 flats have access to the garden and it is located in Bournville Birmingham. Our project started in April 2016 and it is still in its early stages. We are mainly doing container gardening as it is a yard. We are utilising the space that we have by creating vertical planters out of recycled pallets and using the surface of the bin sheds to house our plant pots. This not only saves space but also pretties up an otherwise ugly element of the back yard area. 
We are developing the idea of painting our shed bins inspired by beach huts. This will enhance the outdoor space and add an element of fun and interest. What we want to achieve is a safe and practical space for all for to enjoy. We want to create an environment where people are happy to spend their time and be able to enjoy the outdoors on our doorstep. Before we started, it was not a space that children could have safely played in.