Meet & Greet with our new GLiN CRT groups

We are working in partnership with the Coalfield Regeneration Trust (CRT) over the coming year. This is a very exciting partnership, and it will be focusing on working with six groups across Scotland’s mining communities.

Meet & Greets with our groups

This autumn I joined the Caley and CRT teams to run and look after our new GLiN groups. It is very exciting to be working with our groups across Mid Lothian, Alloa and East Ayrshire. Over the past two months we have been out visiting all our new GLiN groups. It has been lovely getting to see and explore new areas of Scotland.

The first site we visited was Danderhall and the Danderhall & District Guerrilla Gardeners. This groups have lots of greenspaces, allotments and gardens all over Danderhall, including the Keep Scotland Beautiful award-winning Child Miner Memorial Garden at the Wisp. The group work run gardening sessions with local residents, school children and the community. They want to use GLiN to help them turn one of these greenspaces into a show garden at the entrance to the village. This group have achieved so much already, and we can’t wait to help them and the local school pupils achieve their GLiN Award and hopefully more too!

We then did a day in East Ayrshire visiting both Dalmellington & Netherthird. This was a lovely day out and it was great to hear all the plans for both groups.

The Zone in Dalmellington has a small growing space with a polytunnel for growing as part of their center. The recovery group based at the center wants to use GLiN to turn their growing space into a food producing hub. They would like to grow food that they can then cook in their new kitchen and then eat the delicious dishes or give them to local people in the community. It is a real seed to plate project. We are excited to help the group get growing!

Netherthird Community Gardens is a huge site located just behind the brand-new Primary School. The site has polytunnels, raised beds, beautiful plant boarders, covered seating areas and the whole site is surrounded by a wildlife walk. As the gardens are so close to the school the group would like to work with the pupils to help them learn about growing, gardening and wildlife using GLiN as the tool to award the pupils.

After our day out in Ayrshire we then headed back east to visit Gorebridge Community Garden and The Hive in Mid Lothian. This is a unique group as it will be two groups working on two sites and together. The key group work will be at The Hive with the UPMO group. They are going to build raised beds for the front garden area of The Hive and these will be used for cottage garden style food growing. The group also want to make the rest of the garden more wildlife friendly by adding bird boxes, bird feeders to the trees in the garden and making wildlife friendly planters for the entrance. Gorebridge Community Garden has a newly planted orchard and they would like to create a wildflower meadow in areas around the orchard to increase biodiversity and encourage pollinators into the garden. All amazing gardening plans for both sites and we are looking forward to working with the groups to help them on their GLiN journey.

We then headed over to Reachout with Arts in Mind who are based in Alloa. They have a fascinating garden which is situated in the middle of the building, completely enclosed on all four sides by the building. They have a mature oriental garden that has a patio area, stone river, bridge, acer trees, mature conifers and a 30-year-old Wisteria. The vision for this garden is to make the garden more interactive for users of the Reachout studio by building raised beds for growing food, perennials and wildflowers. The groups would like to attract more birds into the garden and make it more colorful all year round. As the group mainly works on art projects, they would also like to incorporate works of art into the garden to make it more exciting and to showcase their work. It will be lovely to work with the group to make this interactive, art filled vision a garden for all to enjoy.

Our final group visit was to Auchinleck Community Development Initiative and The Knowe Garden Centre. This group have an impressive garden with a grow dome, 5 polytunnels, a wildlife area, raised beds for growing, a poison garden, an orchard and much more. Here we will be working with the ACDI Cabin Crew group and regular volunteers to help them re-develop two areas of the garden. They have a new area that the ACDI Cabin Crew  group is redesigning so we will work with them to develop this space into something for them. We will also be working with this group and the volunteers to add more to the wildlife garden, as they want to have more wildlife friendly plants and have more homes and feeders for wildlife too. This is a wonderful and busy site, we are looking forward to working with the groups and helping them achieve their GLiN Award.

Next steps

We are really looking forward to working with all our groups over the next year and are excited to help them achieve their GLiN Awards. I will be heading out to all the sites supporting their work, giving them training and running sessions. We are also planning in some in person visits for all our groups so they can all see what each other are up to, there will also be some inspiring visits to some gardens across Scotland.

Each month we will post a blog update on what our groups have been up to, so watch this space!

Emma Griffith,  Horticultural Educator