Urban Garden Dalston Pic: Jimena Marseillan
An ‘Urban Garden’ event was held this week at Dalston Roof Park and featured many gardening activities and debates on urban agriculture and design.
Little Bee Community and Bootstrap Bee Garden the organisers of the event on July 17, have been working to encourage more green spaces, help bees and share the different ways in which a community can help the environment and vice versa.
A sunny rooftop garden in the middle of Dalston seemed like the perfect place to gather to discuss green spaces in London.
At around noon, several garden experts, landscape architects and environmentalists, and people who just wanted to create a little portable garden, began to arrive at the event.
“[The Garden] makes use of everyday materials and resources to create a fun, positive environment in which people can connect with others who share their interests,”explained Abigail Bulley, the founding director of Little Bee Community.
“It’s about inspiring people to think creatively about how they can shape the areas in which they live.”
Urban Garden Dalston Plants Pic: Jimena Marseillan
Due to the recent decline in activity from the beehives behind the building, one of the main goals of the Bootstrap Bee Garden is to create green spaces in the East London area to shorten the distance bees need to travel to collect nectar and pollen.
“Just for one jar of honey, bees need about a million trips to a green space,” Clara Baker from Boostrap Bee Garden told a group of garden specialists.
Planting at Urban Garden Dalston Pic: Jimena Marseillan
As well as learning about bees, visitors to the Urban Garden event were able to create their own hydroponic (soil free) green wall, and create and take home a food-growing kit.
There was also a ‘cardboard community’ model built up by visitors throughout the day with ideas about how to engineer and develop a more environmentally aware community.
Urban Garden Dalston ‘Cardboard Community’ Pic: Jimena Marseillan
“We had lots of positive feedback and people wanted to learn even more,” said Bulley.
“We also connected Bootstrap Bees, Boostrap Gardens and Dalston Eastern Curve Garden with new volunteers who are keen to help these local projects thrive.”
