Tabbard Estate London, SE1

Tabbard Estate raised beds, London SE1

Southwark Council and one of the residents groups in the southern area of the large Tabbard Estate in London SE1 had accessed a small pot of funding to brighten up a corner of their estate.  Together with trainees from The Centre for Wildlife Gardening Garden Management and Landscape Trainee Scheme I designed and built a small raised bed scheme with an attractive and wildlife friendly but reasonably low maintenance planting scheme.

 

The concept was to create textured, colourful and wildlife friendly containers with a range of seasonal interest and using a mix of native and non native plants. Each container has a similar scheme to increase visual continuity across the space. English lavender, Lavandula angustifolia, forms a colourful and scented spine and is surrounded by a mix of soft Pheasent Tail Grass, Stipa arundinacea, feathery Fennel, Foeniculum vulgare, colourful Yarrows, Achillea ‘Terracotta’ and Achillea ‘Lilac Beauty’, Oxe eye daisy, Leucanthemum vulgare, and Ice plant, Sedum “Autumn Joy’. Star Jasmine, Tracheleospermum jasminoides, native Honeysuckle, Lonicera periclymenum and Clematis, Clematis vitalba, were trained up the fence and bright orange and red Nasturtiums trailed over the edges for some immediate annual colour. Winter interest is created by evergreen qualities of the climbers, lavander and grasses as well as the seedheads of the Clematis, Sedum and Yarrow.

 

It was an all round good result.  The resulting beds have brightened up their small area of the estate, we had  a lot of positive responses from the residents as we were putting it together and the CWG trainees got some good experience building and planting a raised bed scheme in a public area.