Other useful links

Project:

West Ham Allotment Society - the nearest allotments to the site.

The Friends of West Ham Park - our other gardening neighbours.

The South London Botanical Institute - the Institute provides facilities for the study of plants including ecology and conservation, and aims to encourage interest in all aspects of plant life. This is where we found wild flower expert Roy Vickery who joined us for the Urban Seed Day.

Edible Estates - this project proposes the replacement of the domestic front lawn with a highly productive edible landscape. It was initiated by architect and artist Fritz Haeg and there's now one project here in the UK near to the Tate.

The Field Station Energy Café is a project by Pilot Publishing (Amy Plant and Ella Gibbs) at nearby Gunpowder Park. They are constructing an 'Energy Café' which will over turn normal planning procedures - with the local community they will harvest wild food from Gunpowder Park and source farm or home-grown produce within a five mile radius, experiment with sustainable ways of cooking and make an off grid kitchen from free recycled materials.

The Environmental Health Clinic at NYU is a clinic and lab, modeled on other health clinics at universities. However the project approaches health from an understanding of its dependence on external local environments; rather than on the internal biology and genetic predispositions of an individual. Set up by artist Natalie Jeremijenko this umbrella project hosts some fascinating products and schemes. This solar awning is one of our favourites.

Brogdale Farm - home of the National Fruit Collection and an amazing fruit identification service. They identified the JONAGORED apples on the Abbey Gardens site.

Guerrilla Gardening - A great site from Richard in London which charts current guerrilla gardening activity across the world. Local entries include a great video of Sean a blind gardener in London who has transformed his whole street. There's a blog, community forums and an excellent links page.

The Manor Gardens Allotments - information about their campaign to try & stay within the Olympic park and the new site they have now been moved to.

Growing Communities - a social enterprise run by local people in Hackney, working to create a more sustainable food system through projects which provide practical alternatives to the existing food system.

Growing Concerns - a community based gardening & landscaping team dedicated to improving the environment for those living & working in London’s East End.

Roots and Shoots - great organisation which provides vocational training for young people from the inner city, mainly from the London boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark.

Liz Christy Community Garden - started in 1973 by New Yorker Liz Christy and a group of gardening activists known as the Green Guerillas who were planting window boxes, & vacant lots with ‘seed bombs’ and tree pits in the area.

Le Prieuré d'Orsan Tim French from the Friends of Abbey Gardens sent me this link to a lovely French garden with a monastic-style medieval garden.

A useful link from Gordon of West Ham allotments regarding the recent bad news about manure polluted with weedkiller affecting allotments.

The postcode plants database this site from the Natural History Museum does what it says - you put in a postcode and it gives you a list of the wildflowers found near there!

Really Wild Flowers this site sells wild flower seeds and plug plants, but they also have advice sheets and good images of their wild plants.

Lawson Park garden - the development of which Karen has led since 2001

Karen's 'Gardening-Only' Blog - for the very horticulturally interested