Introduction to the Garden
The half-acre wildlife garden at the rear of the Roots and Shoots site is a truly unique open space in Central London. The expansion of interest in wildlife gardening in recent years is a gratifying phenomenon but it remains that open spaces such as the Roots and Shoots Wildlife Garden are still hard to find in inner London. It combines an excellent list of insect species and good numbers of breeding and migrating birds (for its size) with education and accessibility for schools and the general public.
Its secluded location — surrounded on three sides by private (housing association) housing and on the fourth by the main training area of Roots and Shoots — makes it a peaceful haven for wildlife and people within sight of the House of Commons (and, often the only sound, of Big Ben). The Wildlife Garden Manager is able to make it accessible to children and adults whilst maintaining safety and wildlife value.
History
The garden has been established since 1984, though initially not as a wildlife garden as such, and was boosted by an education worker for two years in 1994-5. However, with the establishment of the post of Wildlife Outreach Worker in 1999 (still held by David Perkins) the conservation record and educational value of the garden has been dramatically improved and established. With the expansion of educational projects at Roots and Shoots David's post is now 'Environmental and Educational Resources Manager' primarily funded by the Sheepdrove Trust.
When David began work in May 1999 the main structure of the garden and its plants were a good learning resource in themselves but there was a lot of work needed to make its use by schools more practicable, its wildlife and biodiversity more interesting. In winter 1999/2000 the apple espalier 'fence' was planted to make the path alongside the re-established apiary safer. The ground was thoroughly excavated and much concrete, glass and bits of old engine removed. For much of the 20th century the garden was covered by engineering workshops, demolished in 1979. The construction of this factory removed all traces of the 18th and 19th century gardens that originally occupied the site (the gardens of the mid-18th century houses at the end of the garden visible in the photograph, above). The building was used as the base for Meccano's operations in London in the 1930's but became lorry and car engineering workshops from WWII onwards (including for British Road Services, the post-war nationalised road haulage company). The entrance to the workshops was through an archway that the developer punched through no 10 Walnut Tree Walk, ruining the house. When Linda started Roots and Shoots in 1982 the Wildlife Garden was still a demolition site with buddleia and concrete only (though there were probably some interesting digger wasps using it then, Linda!). Linda cleared the site and fenced it with a grant and the first intake of trainees. We have some good photos of their magnificent efforts (some of these are included in the 2007 25th Anniversary Annual Review available by contacting admin@rootsandshoots.org.uk).
The espalier-trained apple trees are now (2009) well-formed and becoming mature. This form of tree with its horizontal tiers of branches and chunky fruiting spurs requires careful pruning but is a very beautiful way of making a fence. A 'Children's Shelter' was built in 2001 with curved oak benches (the oak was bought from The Woodland Trust - wonderful planks sawn from trees thinned from its reserves). The natural shapes of the oak trees gave the curves and there was little wastage. The shelter can take up to thirty children and is now clothed in passion flowers, Clematis cirrhosa, Clematis armandii and a white Wisteria). Also in 2001 the northernmost corner of the garden was reclaimed from the buddleia and concrete of the factory (Linda did not have this last bit of the garden in 1985). Oil-polluted clay from the espalier apple trench was used to raise the ground to make a terrace in this corner that was once the toilet block of the factory. As it is a south-facing walled corner David thought it would make an excellent site for tender plants. We got some old London York Stone and made a terrace with a small raised bed and a bench made from the Woodland Trust oak. It became 'William Blake's Paradise Corner' and was planted with a Brazilian pineapple Guava and exotic passion vines. That year we also revived the original pond and added a wooden dipping platform. All this work in 2001 couldn't have been done without the commitment of two of David's best volunteers - Rob and Siriol. At the end of 2001 we had a garden that was much more manageable with whole class groups from schools.
In 2002 a new entrance path was built, together with an oak gate designed and built by David using more of the oak from the Woodland Trust. Again, the natural curves of the planks meant little wastage in the design. it is a giant and striking gate and opens easily on the hundred-year old Collinge hinges rescued from a school garden David had worked on. This path and gate makes the approach to the garden more attractive and safer for all users. It is wide and wheelchair accessible (as long as the echiums are not allowed to take over!).
In 2003 the last derelict corner of the garden was reclaimed as a safe dwelling for the Lambeth Dragon (tale-telling zone) with a solar powered dragon's well. The water of this well runs through a sculpture of a vastly magnified Red Campion pollen grain - one of the results of an early Spring Science Week project with artist Martha Macdonald and the children of Walnut Tree Walk Primary School
Areas of Interest
The Wildlife Garden at Roots and Shoots has examples of the major habitats that are possible in a small urban site — a good-sized summer meadow, a small area of hazel coppice with spring bulbs and other native plants of deciduous woodland, two ponds and a small reed bed, flower beds of native and exotic plants aimed at attracting butterflies, bees and flies, log and debris piles of various sizes and shapes, a shaded buddleia 'jungle', and hedgerow plants along the boundary.
In addition it has features of gardening and plant interest — such as the fine shrub roses including Rosa glauca, Rosa 'Graham Thomas' and Rosa 'Fantin Latour', the apple espalier 'fence', several species of Echium from the Canary Islands and southern Europe, including a home-grown hybrid of superb qualities, fruiting Pineapple guava (Acca (syn. Feijoa) sellowiana) and other tender exotics in 'William Blake's Paradise Corner'. Planting of particular interest to gardeners is also established in the other beds on the training areas of the site outside the Wildlife Garden — including a 'Mediterranean climate' mound, superb mimosa trees (Acacia dealbata) and a beautiful walnut tree (Juglans regia), planted at the opening celebration for Roots and Shoots in 1982.
Birds & Insects
The garden has now recorded 16 species of butterfly and 39 species of moth (with significant breeding species such as little skipper, common blue and six-spot burnet moth), at least 30 species of hoverfly, 6 species of dragonfly and 3 species of damselfly, 7 species of bumble bee, around 23 species of solitary bees and 30 species of other Hymenoptera, including the parasitic ichneumons and parasitic and predatory solitary wasps, three species of ant (notably an expanding population of the yellow meadow ant) and gall wasps. There is a very large population of two grasshopper species and two of the rarer crickets. The garden is visited each year by notable species - some quite rare. Examples are the Hairy-legged mining bee Dasypoda altercator (trying putting those names into 'poetry mode'!) in 2005, the Violet carpenter bee Xylocopa violacea in 2006 and the 'nationally scarce' mining bee Andrena pilipes in summer 2008. The meadow was colonised in 2007 by the Wasp Spider - a spectacular beast who feasts on the grasshoppers. More details can be found in the species lists section split into vertebrates (birds) and invertebates(insects) and in the Wildlife Garden blog page. The lists are in the process of being up-dated to the end of 2008.
Honey Bees
There were bee hives on the site in the early nineties but not in 1999 when the Wildlife Outreach Worker post started. Hives were re-established in 2000 with the help of Clive Watson, beekeeper, including an observation hive. This allows safe viewing of the interior of the honey bees' nest, invaluable for educating young and old in the intricacies of bee behaviour, evolution, adaptation and importance for the garden. In 2002, Roots and Shoots became base for the London Beekeepers Association which now hold regular meetings and lectures on site (see below under bees). The apiary was extended in summer 2003 with the help of Charlie Millar. Charlie is an artist who had a studio across Kennington Road for many years. He attended the first Beekeeping Course run by David and the LBKA at Roots and Shoots, became very keen and offered to help manage our hives. He became our major source of help with the bees and their honey until he left to go to Africa in Jan 2007.
School and Community Visitors
The garden is visited by around 2000 children with their teachers each year and there are even more adult visitors from the local community and elsewhere. In an average year the children can spend 6900 hours learning in the garden! Teachers wishing to bring their classes to the garden should telephone David Perkins, 020 7587 1131, or email david@rootsandshoots.org.uk, to discuss their needs.
Special Events
Special events are organised each year. Open weekends or open days with activities for children and adults are organised for National Apple Day in October (see our Events page and the web-site of Common Ground for further details of National Apple Day), National Science Week in March, an Open Weekend and Open Evenings for the National Gardens Scheme in June and July, and there are moth nights and beekeeping events. We have contributed to many local festivals such as Vauxhall Festival and 'Celebrating Age' in Lambeth. A new event for Roots and Shoots in 2008 was the 'Blake in Lambeth' Festival in November, organised by ProjectBlake. We had a weekend of activities and exhibtions to celebrate (our local poet) William Blake's Birthday. To keep in touch with these events join the Friends of Roots and Shoots.
For National Science Week the theme has varied each year, but generally uses the video-microscope system that was purchased in 2000 with the generous financial assistance of the Walcot Educational Foundation and Cross River Partnership.
In 2003 the project was Lambeth's Living Waters. This was a collaborative project between the Wildlife Outreach Worker and the Garden, a local artist-photographer, scientists from the Life Sciences Scanning Electron Microscopy Unit of Kings College, London and from Westminster University and, not least of course, children from Walnut Tree Walk Primary School. Samples from water bodies all around North Lambeth, including the Thames, were taken by the children and examined under the optical video-microscopes at Roots and Shoots and under the Scanning Electron Microscope at Kings College. The children then made art works in two and three dimensions from their original sketches and SEM images. Reen Pilkington, the artist involved, made a video film of the project ("Daphnia and Diatoms") and all these art works were put together for an exhibition/film show at Roots and Shoots during the weekend of National Science Week. "Lambeth's Living Waters" was repeated with variations for National Science and Engineering Week, March 2008. This time we had the addition of several visits by Professor Jane Lewis, Dean of Biosciences at the University of Westminster and the loan of a Scanning Electron Microscope from JEOL (UK) Ltd. This, and the fantastically imaginative models of microscopic life by the children, made the exhibition for the Open Weekend particularly memorable. You can see some images of this in the News section. Other Science Week programmes have included "Beastly Visions" (insect eyes under the microscope) and "The Sounds of Spring" (a multi-disciplinary project with sound recording by children in the garden, musical workshops at the school with musicians from Goldsmiths College, an original musical composition using their recordings by William Longden and a short film by Reen and David.)