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We love hearing about how your gardens and our Thrive advice have helped support your wellbeing. If you would like to share your story, email info@thrive.org.uk
For many people, the Covid pandemic was a time of challenge and change. For Clare, Manager at Oundle Library, this meant overseeing a public service that was now closed for an unknown period.
There was a positive from this. It gave the library team the chance to think about what to do with the library and its garden once open again.
“Our library is in a lovely old building,” says Clare. “It’s had a lot of modernisation inside, but not much outside. We started thinking about how we could develop our garden space.”
“In the past, it was a workhouse with a vegetable garden. We hoped that meant it was good growing soil. But, none of us were green fingered in any way! We had to think about where to even begin.”
The first step for the team was clearing. With the help of contractors and volunteers they removed rotten raised beds, weeded and tidied. As they started to spend more time in the space, they quickly realised its huge wellbeing potential.
“As a team, we rang thousands of people during the pandemic to check how they were doing,” Clare explains. “Some of these calls were very difficult. After our calls, we’d take a cup of coffee and hobnob and sit on the bench in the garden. We were able to have some quiet reflection.”
It made us think, if we can do this and it makes us feel better, then there’s definitely more we could do with this space so it can support the community.
Clare
“It made us think, if we can do this and it makes us feel better, then there’s definitely more we could do with this space so it can support the community.”
Good apples
Next, the grounds team came and cleared further. They tidied the boundary hedge and mowed the lawn, among other things.
With the space now more presentable, it highlighted their big garden asset; a large, mature apple tree. As the apples ripened, the library team put messages on social media encouraging the community to stop by and collect them. They put up display boards by the tree with recipes ideas, like simple apple crumble.
“The positive feedback was huge,” says Clare. “People made it part of their daily walk.”
Friends and great fortune
The group had an amazing extra stroke of fortune when they were gifted a sum of money from a housing development. They proposed using the fund to improve the garden, including building “The Cover”, adding furniture and raised beds.
One of the many people who had visited their apple tree to collect the harvest was, by chance, a keen gardener and wellbeing researcher. This was exactly the person they needed to help with any planting elements.
“We rang Julie and asked if she’d be interested in helping. She was bursting with ideas!” says Clare. “She helped us to understand what we needed to drive the project forward.”
With funds secured and help in place, the transformation could begin. Builders constructed a large wooden outdoor structure, containing benches made from recycled tyres. This allowed the garden to still be used come rain or shine. It quickly became an alternative place to hold indoor library activities, during the early days after lockdown.
“We hosted our first Rhymetime with our children in the outdoor space. If we hadn’t had this space, it wouldn’t have been able to happen at all,” says Clare.
Gradually, word spread.
The local community were thinking about it as their shared space.
Clare
“People started visiting to use the new structure, or sit under the apple tree enjoying the doves coo-ing above. Already, the local community were thinking about it as their shared space.”
A thriving garden
Now, the garden at Oundle Library is transformed. Pots full of plants greet visitors, two large, accessible raised beds are bursting with life and more nature has followed. A nice little shed has even been contributed.
“Our world is full of wildlife,” says Clare. “I did the butterfly count in August; we had standard whites, peacocks, a red admiral and a number of moths. At the latest Garden Bird Watch, we spotted 15 different species of bird.”
Volunteer support
The garden space is now maintained by keen volunteer teams from the community, including the community group Blooming Oundle.
We’ve had volunteers saying coming here and that sense of responsibility gives them the motivation to leave the house.
Clare
Coming to the garden has in turn provided great benefits for the volunteers: “We’ve had volunteers saying coming here and that sense of responsibility gives them the motivation to leave the house. We have had lots of positive stories.”
Learning from Thrive
Gardening has gradually become of keen interest for the team working at the library.
“Our library team are learning from our gardening teams. We’re getting to know which plants are weeds now!” says Clare.
It was another fortunate conversation that led Clare towards Thrive.
“My son attended a community garden project when he was younger. Now, he’s a keen gardener. I was talking to one of the facilitators from the project about what we were doing at the library. They pointed me in the direction of Thrive for more advice.”
Clare signed up to join Thrive Gardening Club and has since been passing on the advice.
“The hints and tips via the newsletter are great!” she comments. “I share Gardening Club newsletters with the library and gardening teams so we can all learn. It’s very informative. Although, we’re not very good at the quizzes!”
I share Gardening Club newsletters with the library and gardening teams so we can all learn. It’s very informative.
Clare
“It’s good to read other people’s stories as well. It makes us think ‘could we do something like that? Could we include that? You only know what you know, so all advice is useful.”
Helping the community
The activities that take place in the library garden continue to expand.
“We’ve started to do gardening activities with children during the school term. We’ve also run family gardening activities in school holidays. We’ve got potting benches now. We’ve grown sunflowers and planted sweet peas in decorated toilet roll tubes.”
“We’re very good at stealing ideas from other people – like the Thrive newsletter!”
“We’re looking at how to involve different parts of our community. We’d like to attract more dads. We’d like to add more sensory elements to the garden. We’re also looking at the potential to include people via green prescribing.”
Describing the effect on the community, Clare shares how people are using the space in ways they never did before.
“The other day, I noticed there was a lady sitting in our garden just looking into space. I went and asked if she was ok and if I could get anything for her. She was perfectly happy and said, “I was just listening.” No-one came and just listened before.”
“It’s amazing to think we’ve created this space. There’s a lot of joy to be had from our garden.”
We love hearing about how your gardens and our Thrive advice have helped support your wellbeing. If you would like to share your story, email info@thrive.org.uk
If you are thinking about setting up a community garden or STH project, you may find our courses and workshops helpful. We offer a wide range to cover all levels of experience.
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