The Friends of Handsworth Park were allocated a small, unused corner of the park by the City Council to turn into a community garden.

 

The project has been made possible through funding from the Veolia Environmental Trust Landfill Community Fund, Tesco Bags of Help and Birmingham City Council. Our thanks go to them for support. We are fundraising for entrance archways and fencing to be designed by Tim Tolkein. Well done and thank you to everyone involved, from all of us who love the park.

 

The two grants totalled over £25,000 which was enough to complete the project. 

We carried out some consultation with local people and the preference was for an easy to maintain sensory garden with year round colour. We asked the Council's design team to draw up some designs & cost it for us.

The sensory garden is a calm area where people can take a moment to look at & smell the flowers and watch the insects. It is accessible for people who use wheelchairs.

Local people have been involved in planting and maintaining the garden.

 

We also want to increase wildflowers and fruit into the park.

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We have 3 aims:

To encourage people to get involved in growing and caring for plants so that they will have the confidence to plant their own gardens and appreciate the natural environment and the park more.

To make this area of the park useable as it between the park goods depot and the park railings and so is not used at all. It is beside one of the main gates to the park and so will be seen and used when it is the sensory garden.

To provide a places for bees and insects to thrive as we will plant native species and wildflowers too.