Energetic Gardening with Energy Garden

Notwithstanding the heat, today some of GG Redbridge finest joined a group of locals and a team from Energy Garden UK this morning to set to work on decorating the eastbound platform of South Woodford tube station with some planters... and ofcourse plants!

Our friends from FRP made the panels for the planters from reclaimed scaffolding planks and dropped them off, so after a welcome from Rhys of the Energy team, our first job was putting them together - one big planter and two smaller ones. Then some pond liner was fixed to the inside, to protect the wood from the damp soil. Note - there might be some powertools visible in pictures, but all were handled by professionals, honestly! With Linda & John sorting our the second planter with some liner, Ed (Linda's husband - possible new recruit as mission specialist??), Ali (Energy team) & myself started filling up the big planter now on the platform, first with some gravelly stuff for drainage, followed by topsoil for planting, wheelbarrow load after wheelbarrow load - total of 2.5ton was shifted today by all involved, with Ed probably taking the biggest amount. Not unexpectedly there were a few energetic young feet about happy to be jumping up & down in the planters to compact the soil before planting & watering them... although the planting got their full attention, so Linda & Cat (from the Energy team) took care of the last stamping session.

Planting done, a quick sweep up and tidy away the tools & bits followed before it was time to head home, hot & tired but happy at a job well done!

Lots of thanks to Rhys, Cat & Ali from the Energy Garden team to organise everything, see you again at another project perhaps?