The Royal Horticultural Society is the UK’s leading gardening charity.
They aim to enrich everyone’s life through plants, and make the UK a greener and more beautiful place. This vision underpins all that they do – from inspirational gardens and shows, through our scientific research, to our education and community programmes.
They are committed to inspiring everyone to grow. And they want to inspire a passion for gardening and growing plants, promote the value of gardens, demonstrate how gardening is good for us and explain the vital role that plants play.
They share our knowledge through books, websites, podcasts and magazines, hold world-class collections of horticultural books and botanical art, and sell the very best plants and gardening gifts.
They have some guiding principles, which are to:
Inspire
Involve
Inform
Improve
Why they take action?
From climate change to disappearing wildlife and the growing grey urban sprawl, there are many reasons why you might want to improve your area through community gardening. Evidence shows that we are paving over gardens at an alarming rate - mile after square mile of them are disappearing under tarmac. It shows that the flooding risk continues to rise and householders everywhere are facing the awful consequences; that temperatures in towns and cities continue to rise. In short, there is a critical need to take action and green up our urban areas.
Benefits for the community
Pride of place: public spaces improved by the people that use them allows a sense of ownership and shared learning – for lasting benefit
Greener surrounds: more gardens means a cleaner and greener place to live and visit (91.5 per cent of recently surveyed RHS Bloom and It’s Your Neighbourhood groups listed this as a key benefit to taking part)
A healthier environment: attracting wildlife with plants could help to boost local biodiversity and tackle air pollution
Transformation: community gardens can regenerate run-down areas and boost the local economy
Safer streets: Cleaner, greener environments have been linked to lower crime rates and reduced anti-social behaviour
Healthier communities: Local food growing can help people make better eating choices, while green exercise is linked to better mental and physical health
Benefits for people
Less stress: ‘green exercise’ like gardening can help reduce anxiety levels and improve mental wellbeing
Get moving: gardening is a great form of aerobic exercise and could help boost strength, stamina and flexibility
Better connections: by growing with others people could meet new face and form stronger local networks
New skills: gain new knowledge, such as how to grow fresh tasty food, how to support wildlife, how to improve the local environment and more
Discover: take the chance to explore new areas of the community and improve them while people are at it
My reflection:
It's a very well established horticultural society and they've done a lot of useful activities, including some scientific collaborations I'd never considered, etc. And they have done a good job of summarising and richly planning what they have done. Their design of many activities is worth learning from me. And they shared the benefits of community gardening for community and people. These advantages can be added to my planning for my utopia.
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