"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead, American anthropologist, 1901-1978
It’s National Gardening Week, and this is a great chance to raise awareness of opportunities to get gardening!
Did you know that there are a number of different gardening campaigns to get people gardening?
A couple of my favourite are from the RHS, that’s the Royal Horticultural Society – Britain’s main gardening charity. The RHS is known for its world famous RHS flower shows such as RHS Chelsea, RHS Hampton Court and RHS Tatton Park; and also for campaigns such as Britain in Bloom which helps build local communities.
But there’s also a couple of others which I think are really important from the RHS and other gardening charities so here there are:
As Britain gets more and more concrete, and there’s more and more building, so it’s really important to look after and create new green spaces. Gardens are crucial, and they are also an essential way to help wildlife. Wildlife are losing more and more habitat to human activity. What’s more, the more land we concrete over, the more risk at flooding we are and the more we damage the environment and our health.
So the RHS is running a campaign to encourage people to get Greening Grey Britain. You could for example:
Plant a tree
Plant a shrub
Plant a flower bed
Plant a window box or a container
Plant a climber
Do something else
The RHS are hoping that 6,000 people will join in this campaign – so far over 2,800 people have done just that.
Wild About Gardens is a joint initiative by the RHS and The Wildlife Trusts to get more people growing for wildlife. This year, the theme is Go Wild For Worms – they are essential to life and a gardener’s best friend. They are also essential food for wildlife.
Young people are clearly the gardeners of tomorrow but more importantly I think they are going to be the guardians of our planet. Frankly, and this is just a personal view, I hope they do a better job of it than my generation have done.
The RHS Campaign for School Gardening inspires and supports schools to give children with gardening opportunities to enhance their skills and boost their development. Children love gardening and it does them so much good.
The RHS is looking to tackle the crisis in the horticultural industry in the UK which is suffering from a growing skills crisis. It’s working to improve the perception of careers in the sector, to support schools in the delivery of horticultural qualifications and to work with the Government to secure funding for plant-science research.
Over 2,000 community groups participate in this gardening campaign – caring for parks, greening street corners, revamping alleyways and basically creating greener, safer places for everyone to live with a fresh community spirit.
Just Add Water is a national campaign to encourage the public to dig wildlife ponds, especially in urban environments. There's been a huge loss of countryside ponds in recent years so hopefully this will help local frogs and newts and other wildlife to survive and thrive. Efforts locally can make a big difference and Froglife have created the Just Add Water campaign to help give advice and tips.
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