ESTATE
Westway community gardens cover 3.5 acres of our space. Our main green areas are Portobello Green, Maxilla Walk, Blossom dale and our award winning Wildlife Garden. Our green spaces our maintained by our gardening team and a team of dedicated volunteers from the local community. As of July 2017 we now have 60,000 honey bees in our wildlife garden which are taken care of by our Beekeeper Rebbeca Teare.
BECOME A GARDENING VOLUNTEER
Our team of gardeners are looking for volunteers to help them maintain the 3.5 acres of the Westway Community gardens. Of course, you do not need experience to work as a volunteer just the enthusiasm to learn new skills and be outdoors.
As a garden volunteer you will work alongside the garden team and be involved in many jobs such as pruning, planting, edging up, plant propagation, and yes, weeding!
You can volunteer for as little as half-day a week. If you are not sure whether you would enjoy the work but want to give it a go, why not come along for 2 – 3 taster sessions before committing yourself to anything further? We are flexible on when you volunteer, especially if you need to change your volunteer day to fit around an appointment. The garden team work from 8am – 16.30pm, Monday to Friday.
If you would like to volunteer with us for a whole day you will be entitled to £5.00 a day towards your lunch (Just keep the receipt)
If you have not done any physical work for a while or are not able to be too physical, we can still find work for you and we always need help in the nursery looking after our young plants.
If you are interested in volunteering, please fill in your contact details below and arrange to come and chat with a member of our gardening team.
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT FROM OUR GARDENING TEAM
BEVINGTON PRIMARY SCHOOL (SEPT 2016)
In Autumn of 2016 the Westway garden team were contacted by a volunteer at a local school. They were creating a garden in the grounds of the school and asked if we could donate plants to them to plant up this new area. The gardeners responded willingly and were able to supply over 200 plants that had been grown in our nursery. These included Evening Primrose (Oenethera biennis) and Sweet William (Dianthus barbatus), amongst others. School volunteer, Rosy Parsons, was delighted with the plants and said it was a great boost to know the new garden would be enjoyed by the children.
In 2017, the school is planning to build a wildlife pond and again the Westway gardeners are able to help by supplying aquatic plants that currently grow in the nursery.
EDIBLE GARDEN PROJECT
In 2016, our volunteer coordinator Annie Cartwright, worked with a local community project The Dalgarno Trust to provide a space where its gardening group could grow their own vegetables and harvest them for use in their community kitchen. This year the group will once again be deciding what to grow for 2017 and planting a wide variety of fruit and vegetables for the season ahead. The area is adjacent to the Clay tennis Court near the Westway Sports Centre.
WILDLIFE GARDEN 2016
Our own wildlife garden and pond, near the Westway Sports Centre, is well established and was awarded the North Kensington Environment Forum Trophy, as part of The Brighter Kensington and Chelsea Scheme. This award recognises the hard work of the garden team in creating this wildlife haven, nestled between the A40 Fly-over and a row of houses. The garden is only planted with plants that were known to be native before the last Ice Age.
