Community gardens are creating a safe space for residents in their local area to come and feel at home in, using gardening to aid mental and physical wellbeing. From St Mary’s Therapeutic Garden and the Coco Collective Ital Community Garden in Lewisham, to St Mary’s Secret Garden in Hackney, green space which would otherwise be part of the 80% left derelict is being harnessed to benefit the local community.

‘It’s about engaging again with the world’: St Mary’s Therapeutic Garden

Entering St Mary’s Therapeutic Garden is like stepping into another world. Just off Lewisham High Street, where the air is filled with the chaotic noises of sirens and engines, the loudest sound in the garden is of birds calling and leaves rustling. The churchyard of St Mary the Virgin is the site of a gardening project dedicated to nurturing the mental wellbeing of the local community. It was established with the patients at the Ladywell Unit next door in mind, who suffer from mental health conditions.

“I’m so passionate about making this poor part of Lewisham worthy of the people who live there,” says Marion Watson, the Garden Manager. “This area rates very high on the deprivation index, so people do suffer hugely from unemployment and mental health issues. It’s so important to give them as much loveliness as possible. There’s no reason why this bit of Lewisham shouldn’t be as nice as Green Park near Buckingham Palace.”

The old churchyard was saved from disrepair and antisocial behaviour just six years ago and transformed into a therapeutic garden. It was originally created in collaboration with South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLAM), but is now a space of refuge for the whole community. “If you’ve been locked up in an inpatient unit, coming to the garden is going to be really good for you,” says Carmine de Rosa, from SLAM NHS Foundation Trust, who helped found the therapeutic garden. “It’s about giving people a space to connect with others and with the soil.”

People with depression, psychosis, PTSD and many other mental illnesses have all come to the garden to aid their recovery. “We had a group of Sri Lankan ex-Tamil Tigers that all had combat stress,” says Carmine. “They really benefited from coming here and did a lot of really hard work, it was very physical. For them, it was therapeutic to be able to do that.”

Carmine explains that gardening is a meditative process. “When you’re gardening what you’re doing is mindfulness, but you don’t realise it,” says Carmine. He says focusing on one task, such as weeding, is key to the therapeutic nature of gardening. “There’s lots of evidence that just having contact with the soil is good for you,” he says.

Gardening is helping to reforge people’s connection with their surroundings and community. “People tend to have mental health conditions because they’ve had bad experiences,” says Carmine. “It’s not about the elimination of symptoms, it’s about getting patients to engage again in the world.”

Aoife Bird, who has been a volunteer at the garden since the beginning, has Multiple Sclerosis (MS), a neurological condition. “My ability changes frequently,” she says. “The other day I couldn’t do anything standing up, my legs would stop working.” Staff at the garden found tasks that she was able to do. “They’re really aware of both your abilities and disabilities,” says Aoife.

For Aoife, the garden is an empowering space. “Being treated like a real human being when you’re sick is so important,” she says. “That’s something they do here, they treat you with respect.” 

Although the garden was created with the patients of Ladywell Unit in mind, it is there to help anyone who would like to visit. “I think it is good to have a setting where people will mix, those that have mental health conditions and those that don’t, to see that it’s a normal part of being human,” says Carmine.

‘You feel like you’re part of something bigger’: St Mary’s Secret Garden

Across the river in Hackney, a community garden is tucked away near Hoxton station, where you would least expect it. The aptly named St Mary’s Secret Garden offers twice-weekly placements run by horticultural therapists. A range of people come to this pocket of green space, including those with learning disabilities, autism, physical disabilities and long-term or life-changing health conditions. 

“Somebody who’s had a stroke might want to work on their fine motor skills, and get dexterity and mobility back,” says Siobhan MacMahon, the Garden Manager. “Working in the garden, seed sowing or planting is going to help bring that back, in a supportive environment.”

Work in the garden can be very physically demanding if people want it to be. “It can be a good workout sometimes,” says Siobhan. “Some people like to get stuck in and do lots, and then other people like the relaxed atmosphere the garden can provide.”

Michael, who does a therapeutic placement at the garden and has been coming for many years, finishes putting some gravel in for a path and wanders over, tired and out of breath, but satisfied. He says it is the people he meets at the garden that makes him like it, and keep returning.

Siobhan explains how working in the garden alongside others can make people feel a valued part of something larger than themselves. “I think it brings people together,” says Siobhan. “People can feel isolated, or low. As soon as you start working with plants, you get that connection, you feel like you’ve achieved something and like you’re part of something bigger and it can assuage those feelings.” 

St Mary’s Secret Garden has become a lifeline to the local area over the years. They have forged connections with many communities across Hackney and the surrounding boroughs. For example, on Monday mornings, they run a session for Orthodox Jewish women with learning disabilities. 

For Siobhan, gardening is unique in the way it can empower people, especially those struggling with health conditions and disabilities. “Being able to contribute to creating a space like this and to be able to see other people enjoy it is really wonderful,” says Siobhan. “It’s something you can put a lot of work into and see the benefit visually and also feel it and taste it and touch it. I think it’s difficult to get that feeling from something else.”

‘People of colour need their own spaces’: Coco Collective Community Garden

Although London’s public parks and gardens are open to anyone and everyone, Valerie Goode recognised that her community lacked a green space which was authentically their own. This led her to create the Coco Collective Ital Community Garden, which is “unapologetically Afro-diaspora led”, for “people of African heritage from all over the world.” 

Val previously had an ethical fashion business, inspired by how her grandmother in the Caribbean would “use the land to clothe, heal, and feed herself and her family.” She carried this practice through into her own clothing design by using plant dyes to print her fabrics. However, when covid hit, her award-winning business was wiped out and Val decided to start a new venture, creating a community garden in Bellingham specifically for people of colour.

“I went to Lewisham Council and I said, people of colour need to have their own spaces,” says Val. “We created a safe space to connect, learn, heal and grow.” The garden has run mental health workshops for people with social prescriptions to come and do gardening as part of their treatment for depression or anxiety. The Birmingham and Lewisham African Caribbean Health Inequalities Review (the BLACHIR report) released last year highlighted that more needs to be done to improve the community’s access to mental health services.

Val recognises that for green spaces to truly serve the mental wellbeing of the whole community, they need to allow people to engage with others who truly understand their culture and heritage. “It’s about people coming and really being able to express themselves, talk their native tongue knowing that someone there in that space is going to recognise that native tongue,” she says. She aimed to create a space where you can “feel at one with oneself away from whatever the world tells you that you are.”

One of the most valuable mental health benefits of gardening is feeling grounded in nature. However, Val highlights that in many green spaces it can be difficult for some people to truly feel connected to the land. “No one should every feel disconnected from land, from soil, from what is natural,” she says. She says that racism is something many visitors to the garden experience, but Coco Collective is a safe space. “You can even just walk out of your house and still feel societal pressure. So it’s nice to have a space where those barriers are gone.”

People with African heritage will often have a different perspective on the natural world, Val explains. “Climate change is much closer to home for people of colour,” she says. “Often we’ve still got family that live in developing countries, and it’s our aunties and uncles that are most at risk.”

Carmen Freeman, Lead Grower at the garden, moved to London from the US in 2021. She found that coming to the garden helped her become part of a community. “When I came here, it brought a sense of homeliness that I would not have expected to find in a city like London,” she says. 

She says that she has loved gardening since she was a young child, when she would help her grandmother. “I think understanding the fact that we are part of the ecosystem, and being able to really engage with the earth is important,” says Carmen. “We’re trying to create a radical understanding of the world around us and how we interact with it. It’s revolutionary for people to come together in the land and be with it.”

Coco Collective has now opened a new community garden in Catford, created by and for young people. Val says the experience has been empowering for them. “They own it, they lead it, they galvanise themselves, they set up their own meetings, I’m just here to facilitate that,” she says. “They inspire me so much because they really get climate change and whatever mental ailments might be happening within their generation, and they’ve got solutions.”

For the rest of our series on green spaces, click here.