Community Garden in Edgbaston

[Benjaminbrum]

I live in Century Tower (it's one of the tower blocks by the cricket ground) and every year we're given a wodge of money from renting out the roof space for mobile phone masts.

This year Century Tower has over ?7000 to spend. (Which is ace!) Last year the money got spend on CCTV- what big eyes the council has, all the better to spy on us...

This year I'm hoping that the money can get spent on a community garden which will benefit the whole estate with flowers and beauty.

However... I don't have the first clue how to pitch this to the housing liaison board of which I'm a member. Can anyone help me out with coming up with a master plan? I think having some pictures and maybe a plan would work better than just sitting at the table and saying "Community garden".

Get in touch if you can help me out.

[Florinda]

Hi,  what a good idea.  Have you seen any of my postings ( Florinda about Sophie's choice )  I think a good place to start is photos of the space now. I put mine on "The Stirrer" and I think it shamed local councillors to then help me get 2 large planters plus soil and plants from Forward4work ( a brilliant project for folk with Learning difficulties at Nechells ) The council has paid for them.  I then begged Kings Norton's parish council for 3 iron benches, went back to the Council for some free paint......  we're starting work on sunday!
Care to join us, then you'll have some people to help you on your project... Yours sounds much more exciting, ours is just a grot spot. I'm no expert, just a very keen amateur.  I bought the G.G. book which you can borrow for inspiration. There's bound to be something online for planning gardens. maybe a template, otherwise we can have a go.
my real name's Lucy. you can email me on lucy@sobrero.co.uk if you want. We live in cotteridge.
Let me know if you can put in an hour on sunday!! the site's just near Kings Norton train station. bye

[Village Park Residents Association]

Dont know if its any use but try and find out if your local council has a Horticulture section manager, then have a word to see if they would support your venture.

Does Edgbaston enter into Britain In Bloom, I know that Shenstone road used to as I saw that on Community Channel  http://www.communitychannel.org/content/view/956/79/

You could say that a community bed helps with the town entry or Birmingham overall
Thats what our res group did 3 years ago,now the borough council ask us what and where.