September in the Garden
Welcome to the September edition of Fiveways Gardens.
As
it’s been too wet and horrible to do much gardening, I’ve been
focussing my mind on something very dear to my heart as a
gardener. I feel passionately about the importance of saving our
gardens (allotments too) and I'm amazed how little awareness of this
issue exists, so am spreading the word. I know some of you have
balconies or views of other peoples gardens, which I know you
value. It would be great if some of you spread the word further
still.
Garden grabbing is a practice where property
developers buy properties, often large detached houses, knock them down
and then squeeze a small estate of new homes onto the same plot.
Another option for them is to approach folks with large gardens and
offer to buy part of their garden to build on. This erosion of
Britain's green spaces is made possible by a loophole in the law which
sees gardens defined as brownfield sites, making them ripe for
development. Various charities and campaign groups are involved
in the fight to get this loophole closed. The organisation
spear-heading the scheme can be found at www.saveourgardens.org.uk or
telephone 02476 303517 for more information about how you can help.
This isn’t just an issue for gardeners. At issue
here is our general well-being - green space created by gardens is
often an oasis of calm in our increasingly busy urban lives.
Whilst at university, I lived in a first floor flat with no access to
the garden. However, what made me take the flat was the amazing
view of a green lush corridor out of the bedroom window. My small
flat overlooked a big green space full of trees, bushes, lawns and
flowers. I got to see the effects of the changing seasons and
hear the chirpings of the birds that lived there. I appreciated
this connection with our natural world way before I had much interest
in picking up a pair of secateurs.
A further reason to object to
this trend is flooding. I don’t think I need say much on this
after the floods of this summer. Quite simply, flooding becomes
more likely as we pave and concrete more and more of our green
space. Then there’s the loss of habitat for all sorts of
creatures, from bees to birds - often already under pressure because of
changes to farming practise over past 50 odd years.
if
you're even vaguely interested, check this out sooner than later.
There's a vote in the House of Commons coming up in October and many
MPs across all parties are very supportive. The more of us that
make our voices heard hopefully the better.
Thanks for your time on this one and best wishes
Lisa
For an initial consultation call Lisa on 01273 500407 or 07957 751218 or email her at info@lilybud.co.uk
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