Since April 2024 we have been working with neighbours to transform a piece of wasteland on Dawberry Road (B14 6RY) into a thriving community garden to benefit all our residents and the area, creating a shared and co-designed neighbourhood activity space full of nature and growing as well as a place to make new connections. Scroll down to see the illustrated timeline of what we have achieved together so far.
During the winter months we will run ad hoc events and garden openings, depending on the weather. We promote these in our WhatsApp group and on social media. If you want to be alerted of opening times, please sign up to the WhatsApp group by contacting Suze on 07476 898419.
During the spring and summer months there will be gardening and hosting volunteer opportunities. If you are interested please contact Suze on 07476 898419.
Wasteland used for fly tipping and antisocial behaviour. It was cut back every few years. It’s when we started imagining what could be!
Our first co-design day with local residents as part of our Neighbourhood Action Coordination project in partnership with Birmingham City Council. Requests to BCC to enable us to use the land for community purposes. While we were waiting we took advantage of fresh top soil after Seven Trent works!!
Permission given by BCC to use the land for a community garden on a ‘meanwhile’ lease.
We received funding from Hubbub and Starbucks to become one of 100 nature hubs across the UK!
Waste Monster Services were commissioned to remove the contaminated soil. They also levelled out the land and took it back to hard standing areas (former garages) which we can then use as part of the overall garden which we are co-designing with the land’s neighbours.
This work was possible thanks to a Neighbourhood Action Coordination grant from Birmingham City Council.
Our first event and recruitment drive on 14th April was a fantastic start and a group of about 20 turned up.
Our first event and recruitment drive on 14th April was a fantastic start and a group of about 20 turned up.
Battles with bramble, bind weed and self seeded trees!
Wildflower border in.
We ran our first fundraiser to build and repair fences to create a safe environment and we raised over £1400!
Our two local primary schools ran non-uniform days and raised almost £500 towards it. We also got some fencing freebies from Wickes and Travis Perkins worth around £500.00.
Fence built by Mark Carter, local groundsman and resident.
York Road LTN planters donated, delivered (including soil) and painted!
Raised beds built.
Wheelchair accessible pathway put in. to get us started.
Plants from award-winning designer border collected from the NEC and Deborah delivered a workshop with residents to create our own designer border.
Our first community event for the Great Get Together… A Tea and Chai Garden Party! Over 100 people attended.
Our first shed donated by The Brandwood Centre and given a makeover!
Residents took part in woodworking workshops with Andy to recycle the LTN planters into new wheelchair-friendly raised beds.
Families enjoyed making bug hotels too!
Lots of planting this month at weekly Tuesday evening sessions to see what we could grow!
We opened up for Thursday morning activities for families as well as continued Tuesday night get togethers. It rained a lot when we were open for events.
We built our first compost bin with help from Composting guru Laura!
We found out that the Barchester Foundation have awarded us a grant of £1k to buy a big vandal-proof wheelchair-friendly picnic table made from recycled plastics.
We’re getting a buzz from the start of our first growing season’s harvest!
Another grant confirmed – this time £4k from Platform Housing Community Chest to build a greenhouse, get more hard standing areas paved and to buy a 1,000L water butt. Work will start happening next month.
At this point we are running, like most community gardens, on volunteer fuel only and while we are opening up once a week for volunteering activity still, we’ve understandably slowed down a bit!
A local Beavers group came to prep the wildflower patch ready for spring blooms!
Potato crop is ready!
Great news!! Our Scene CIC has been awarded an Awards For All grant to run a 12 month community development activity programme in the garden – creating lots of reasons to come together as a community and use the space in different ways.
Our local and lovely paving experts, Premier Driveways, came back to create more hard standing areas and paths for us. We are gearing up to future events and creating access for wheelchair users to all areas of the garden. This additional landscaping was paid for by Platform Housing. They are also funding a greenhouse build and a massive water butt!
We were worried that all the brambles and self-seeded trees would come back over winter making unnecessary work, so we covered the ground in cardboard. Fortunately we found a very local supplier Castle Cartons who gave us their cardboard headed to recycling.
We welcomed Colmore Junior School’s Social Action Club who planted spring bulbs.
New compost bays!
Tree and fence decorations made beautifully by local craft group The Good Yarners have gone up for our first Christmas in the garden! Lights and tree sponsored by local firm Castle Cartons.
We hosted our first regular coffee morning. The picnic bench was perfect for chatting, drinking hot choc and soup.
The project was featured on BBC Midlands Today!
Third attempt lucky! We had to cancel our composting workshops with the Compost Connection CIC twice because of storms. Despite the cold, we went ahead with a January workshop. Who knew how much we would all leave wanting to nurture microbes!
We knew we wouldn’t get a crowd, but opening up for a couple of hours each week over the winter for hot drinks and chats has meant some local residents got out the house if they needed to and we got some jobs done – like litter picking and reporting (again!) fly tipping in front of the garden.
A productive month! The composting has started well, with five households now saving their peelings for the garden. We mixed in beer grains and greens at one of our weekend openings.
Andy and Adrian started building the greenhouse, funded by Platform Housing. They have also given us another £300 to buy plants and seeds, and we opened up a tab at York Road Supplies!
Good news is that we have been awarded a top up grant from Nature Hubs – to onboard some horticultural expertise and work with Allens Croft Primary school, so we’ll have LOADS more workshops and learning opportunities this year!
We held our first Spring event, welcoming loads of new faces into the garden for sowing seeds, making lavender bags, cutting the ribbon on the new greenhouse, installing a water butt (also thanks to Platform Housing!)
We also received confirmation that we have been awarded £10k grant from Severn Trent Community Fund which will enable us to run a ‘Grow Your Own Dinner Party’ project in the garden and at a new school garden at Wheelers Lane Tech College – our local secondary school for boys. This funding has brought in ‘green-fingered’ horticultural expertise from Lindsay and Natasha.
We had a great time with Allen’s Croft Gardening Club, planting gifted Fruit Trees with Rob and Laura from Fruit and Nut Village.
A fun afternoon of learning new skills and volunteering for local teenagers. Three new planters now ready for growing veg!
Our Tuesday evening volunteering sessions started again, this time with the expertise of Lindsay twice a month. Plugs potted in greenhouse! We also started a Friday afternoon session. It’s a chance to enjoy the garden and if you like to be ‘creative’, we will have activities available.
How has it been a year since our first event already? We celebrated one year of Dawberry Corner on 13 April.
The Sunday Sessions with Natasha’s ‘Grow your own Dinner Party’ are going well. So much growing in the greenhouse!
Some of our garden neighbours asked if they could run an event for the whole community to commemorate VE Day 80. A memorable afternoon of singing, sharing food and family memories.
We started the first of our series of 7 school visits this term from years 4-6, plus Turtles from the Resource Base, from Allens Croft Primary School, just a few minutes walk away.
Final landscaping works complete. All local tradespeople who have done a fab job.
Some of our garden neighbours asked if they could run an EID celebration party for the whole community. It was a beautiful event, attended by around 80 people. So many new families came to the garden and some have since come back to volunteer each week.
June has seen lots more ‘firsts’ in the garden!
Numbers at our regular volunteering sessions on Tuesday evening and Sunday afternoons continue to grow! Some of the children who have visited as part of school visits are bringing their families. Children, teens and adults work side by side to plant vegetables, paint sheds, move soil and water the garden. Other children play and adults chat. It’s fun and everyone helps pack up!
We are not just a garden, Dawberry Corner is a place for creativity and play. Kaos-Arts (based the other side of the Gully next to the garden) were commissioned to create us a beautiful mosaic hop scotch.
We mentioned the garden being a place for play? Look what Andy, assisted by our wonderful youth volunteers built for just that!
GCSE’s finished, this awesome group have spent hours in the garden already helping, learning new skills and building up their CVs. The fence painting led to this…
If there were an award for the poshest portaloo cover up in a community garden – do you think we’d win it? Welcome to ‘Lou’s Cottage’! Thank you local artist Tom from Forthem Hand-Painted for turning fence panels into reasons to smile. It’s great to be able to commission really local graffiti artists.
Some of our wonderful volunteers have offered to run sessions in the garden at other times which means we can now open 3-4 times a week. We also had our first Table Top Sale, a Stay & Play, a Teddy Bear picnic adventure with Toni’s Drama Tots, and the first of our holiday SEND-Friendly play session. It’s been great to see the garden used in different ways to bring people together.
We had a great visit from our Al Carns MP who seemed impressed with the garden and fabulous v0lunteern team. A good time to show off all the garden ‘merch’ for volunteers too.
Another VIP came to visit the garden this month too, Roger a judge from Heart of England in Bloom. He told a volunteer the community garden was ‘premier league’! We hope that means we get a good grade from the panel.
July was such a busy month, getting ready for the ‘Official’ opening of the Garden.
First though, we needed some final finishing touches to end the garden’s transformation, including a new hand-painted sign by Tom from ForThemHandpainted and benches and new drinks station built and painted.
About time for a before and after picture. We’ve come such a long way in 15 months!!
Over 85 people joined us at our ‘official’ launch party on the 29 July. It brought volunteers, local residents and stakeholders, and artists who have shared their talent with us together with funders so they could see the impact their investment has made to our community.
Photo credits: Joe Singh
From left to right are (funders and contributors): Rachel from Birmingham City Council, Emma from Awards for All, Cllr David Barker, Tom who painted our new sign, Hilary from BCC and Natalie from Severn Trent Community Fund.
Harvesting and cooking has commenced in the garden as part of our project funded by Severn Trent Community Fund. First up we cooked a meal of Ukrainian Borscht together!
The following weekend, we once again celebrated the heritage of our Ukrainian neighbours with a beautiful performance by folk dance ensemble Mryia.
Summer was a very busy time, with volunteers becoming key holders and opening up the garden for others to enjoy. Here was a typical week over the school holidays, with evening activities continuing into October!
Another first this month in the garden, our first film screening! We tested out a new projector, screen and battery power pack, bought as part of the Cultural Action Area funding. A huge learning curve, but a great opportunity to watch Stories Unite with new people, seeing how much the garden has changed over the past year.
We went down to Malvern to the Three Counties Showground for the Royal Horticultural Society’s “It’s Your Neighbourhood” awards. The judges assessed the garden at Level 5 – Outstanding! An awesome achievement all the volunteers.
Autumn is in full swing, with sparklers and toasted marshmallows over a fire pit for the first time.
Winter bulbs and tidying this month with Lindsay and some new adult volunteers.
Followed by our final harvest and cook up as part of the Severn Trent funded project, this time with Fathima, Maliha and team leading the cooking.
It’s so cold in the garden now, but we got together to decorate the Christmas tree, for the Lights Switch on and for our Christmas party! A nice way to wrap up a successful first year in the garden.
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