Community Garden

The ‘Secret Garden’ is looking beautiful (August 2023)

Read our latest post HERE to view some beautiful photographs of the Community Centre Garden during the summer of 2023.

Garden Update August 2021

This year, we are thrilled to have teamed up with Seeds4Success who are a charity helping young people gain their credits, especially in the garden. This young enthusiastic team have taken on our community garden and with the kind donation of plants from Bright Seeds we have a very interesting garden developing. The Seeds 4 Success team are also planning to tidy, paint and plant so do go and have a look at our garden.

We currently don’t have a Trustee or volunteer to look after our lovely community garden so if you or anyone you know have ideas for the garden or could use some of it’s space, please let us know.  We do have a contractor who keeps it cut and mowed.

The Community garden is now quite well established thanks to our past Trustee, Dr Sue McClaren and her friends and family who spend many hours looking after it. The brownies took over one of the raised boxes and the Stroke Club had the other one, and both looked really good last year. Last year, one of them has been planted with simple veg and both boxes are doing well. “Steve” the hedge has established itself, and the same with other plants around the edges and “Bugingham Palace” bug hotel has residents!  A  brick seat was built by friends of the Stroke Club and a new memorial bench was added. The garden has also had a good new wooden fence put up around it and it continues to be a popular resource for the Centre users and the Wilton Community.

    

    

History of a lovely community space

After many days and hours of hard working the vacant overgrown space at the back of the Centre, the new community garden was officially opened by His Worship, Cllr Phil Matthews, Mayor of Wilton on Saturday 29th August 2015. Cllr Matthews had made the garden part of his Mayoral Appeal 2014 /15 and donated the princely sum of £1,300 towards its development.

Cllr Phil Matthews, Mayor of Wilton, officially opens the community garden and presents a cheque for £1,300 to Charlotte Blackman, Chair of the Trustees.
Cllr Phil Matthews, Mayor of Wilton, officially opens the community garden and presents a cheque for £1,300 to Charlotte Blackman, Chair of the Trustees.

The wild garden, was first looked at in 2010 and many community meetings were held to ask the public what they wanted to see there and with great advice from Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, plans were set up to get the garden cleared and made ready. This activity attracted the attention of another Mayor Cllr Andy Kinsey, who also raised £1000 for the garden with his Mayors Appeal 2010 /11.

Cllr Andy Kinsey presenting his cheque for £1000 to the Trustees July 2010.
Cllr Andy Kinsey presenting his cheque for £1000 to the Trustees July 2010.

The Trustees, under the direction of Dr Sue McLaren, friends and Wiltshire Youth Services under Rose Salmi, completed the work in the garden and it is now a pleasant and pretty place to be. User Groups, The Stroke Club and The Brownies each had a raised box, and they have been packed with fine blooms for the summer. The community garden is for the use of the users and the community.

The garden in August 2015
The community garden in August 2015. More pictures of the garden, before and after can be seen on the Gallery Page