Beautify Balham

Striving for a greener, cleaner and more beautiful Balham.

Gardening

How Sprout Up is helping to Beautify Balham

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Recently we were delighted to hear from Seonaid and Rose at Sprout Up, offering to help us re-home leftover plants from the Wimbledon tennis tournament. With their help, we were able to collect hydrangeas, cornus, euonymus, salvias and ferns – all in Wimbledon’s colours – which we have used to fill gaps in a few of our communal gardens, as well as our new community garden along Chestnut Grove.

Sprout Up is a local garden design and maintenance business with an all-female team who have helped to beautify a great many gardens in Balham and the surrounding area. Their designs are always striking, but what we particularly like is the way they think through how the space will be used – making sure it works for the whole family.

Like us, they are passionate about making Balham more beautiful, supporting nature, protecting against climate change, and getting more people outdoors. As well as working with Beautify Balham, they give back to the community through their social impact arm, Sprout Up Schools – using leftover plants and materials to build better outdoor spaces in schools.

You may have seen Seonaid (pronounced Shona!) and the Sprout Up van at Balham in Bloom 2024, where she offered gardening advice, sold plants and ran seed-sowing activities for children. She is really passionate about helping children from all backgrounds to access nature and her RHS Hampton Court show garden, Believe in Tomorrow, won a silver-gilt medal.

If you are thinking of doing some garden work, do have a look at the Sprout Up website or find them on Instagram.

Balham in Bloom 2024

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For the first time since the creation of the Balham in Bloom competition in June
2020, Beautify Balham hosted a half-day festival featuring remarkable participants:
The Thoughtful Fruiter, Friends of Wandsworth Common, Climate Action Group,
Sprout Up and Jefferson’s Ice-Cream, to name a few. The event was a hive of
activities for all ages and the salsa dancing performed by the talented ‘SASalsa‘
group, and the accomplished musicians of the band ‘Swing Driven Thing‘, made
the whole event truly spectacular.

At 2pm the prizes were distributed to the brilliant winners and runners up for the
Balham in Bloom competition. The categories were:

  • Best residential front garden
  • Best residential communal garden
  • Best window box / hanging basket / terrace
  • Best business frontage

We had some fantastic entries, and our three judges applauded their efforts to green
up Balham.

The Balham in Bloom Festival seeks to highlight the urgent need to green gardens in
our city at a time when urban heat is on the increase and paved gardens exacerbate
run off and flooding. Just adding a few pots on paved areas will help to mitigate
these issues and also add to the dire need for more biodiversity in our streets.

There are plenty of incredibly useful websites and books to help find easy and cheap was to green your garden. Please see a collection of resources below – (so many inspirational stories and tips to make Balham and London greener!):

Websites:

Books:

We would also like to take the opportunity to thank the local businesses who kindly
donated the prizes.

If you want to help Beautify Balham on one of our litter picks or other events, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at hello@beautifybalham.org.

Cooling streets in heatwaves

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Damien Gayle, journalist at The Guardian newspaper, has published an article that describes how new research suggests green space provides a significant cooling mechanism for urban setting during heatwaves.

New research by the Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCCAR) have just published a comprehensive review into the heat-mitigating effects of green spaces during heatwaves. Their conclusion suggests that sites such as the Chelsea Physic Garden and the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew reduce air temperatures during heatwaves by an average of 5C.

London is fortunate to have plenty of green spaces but this can always improve, especially in the centre of town where concrete streets absorb heat and create the urban heat island effect. This phenomenon is caused by structures such as buildings, roads and other metal or concrete infrastructure absorbing heat and re-emitting the sun’s heat, resulting in temperatures rising.

Green spaces, urban parks, wetlands, green walls, and even street trees, were found to significantly mitigate the warm temperatures. The paper goes on to suggest that cities can unlock more benefits by linking green spaces together into ‘green corridors’. These are beneficial in the cooling process but also provide biodiversity channels which are essential at a time when the loss of biodiversity in England is at an all-time high.

Balham is fortunate to be in close proximately to three commons, and plenty of tree lined streets, but more can be done. There are plenty of opportunities to install green walls which would provide a cooling mechanism and establish the green corridors that the paper describes. This valuable new piece of research highlights the importance of green spaces to keep urban populations safe from future heatwaves, and this is especially pertinent as we experienced the warmest February on record for England and Wales.

You can read Damien Gayle’s article at The Guardian here.
Please tag us @beautifybalham if you see any more articles that encourage us to develop our green spaces!

Autumn to Winter

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October has now ended, taking with it the last of the summer’s heat.
With the change of seasons comes a different set of needs for our gardens.
Autumn is the perfect time to tidy up before the really cold weather sets in. As plants and grass begin to slow their growth, it’s a good time to have a clear up in the garden.

Mulch and Mush

Cut back plants that have turned brown and mushy, but maybe leave some of the more interesting seed heads for the birds and to add interest to the borders architecturally.
If you have a lawn, it’s better to avoid cutting it. Aerate the lawn with a fork then rake up leaves as they fall and use them for mulch on your flower beds, or you can also gather up the leaves and place them in black plastic sacks. Tie up the bag and make holes with a fork before storing them behind a shed or out of sight. Wait until the Spring when they will have mulched down, ready to spread around trees and shrubs.

Indoor flowers

Prepare indoor bulbs for flowering at Christmas. Hyacinths and daffodils can be forced during the winter months. You can find bulbs on sale now in garden centres and nurseries. Prepare a pot with holes in the bottom and cover with a few crocks. Mix some compost with grit and fill the pot half way up. Place the bulbs on top then cover with more compost and water slightly. Place in a dark cupboard and check for new growth. Water if dry. Bring them out into the light onto a window sill when shoots are about 5 cm, then enjoy watching them grow and flower in your home.

More things to do this week…

  • Deadhead flowers that are continuing to bloom
  • Collect seeds and store in paper envelopes or bags and label. Store in a dry place until Spring
  • Prune branches on trees and shrubs that have died back or are in the way. Cut back to a healthy side branch
  • Divide deciduous shrubs by cutting back foliage, forking roots apart and replanting elsewhere
  • Plant bulbs: daffodils, crocus, iris reticulata, muscari (grape hyacinth) and scillas in window boxes and in the garden. Tulips can be planted now too or well into November or December.

Oh yes, and don’t forget to feed the birds! Seeds, berries and suet balls will be appreciated and a lovely way to light up a gloomy day watching from your window!

Enjoy your Autumn and Winter gardening! Please send your seasonal gardening tips to us at hello@beautifybalham.org or tag us in on social media through @BeautifyBalham!

Why you should install a water butt in your garden

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Have you ever considered all the rainwater that falls on your roof and gets funnelled away to the drains? No, I hadn’t either, until this summer. After last year’s heat wave it’s perhaps time to think about saving rainwater ready for potential more soaring temperatures during the summer months.

Here are several reasons why I think installing a water butt should be standard practice in our gardens:

Fresh water is a precious resource

Here in Britain we take our rainy days for granted, often wishing them away. Yet compare our green and fertile hills with those arid areas of the world where rain isn’t as plentiful, and we start to understand how this amazing supply of fresh water is actually one of our most precious resources.

A sprinkle of rainwater is similar to a light dose of fertiliser

Rainwater contains nitrates and organic matter, so it feeds and nourishes the plants as you’re watering them. Get ready for lush foliage!

Rainwater is 100% soft on plants

If you feel like you’ve always struggled to keep house plants happy, try watering them with rainwater! Rainwater is soft: free from the salts, minerals and chemicals found in treated tap water, natural ground water and surface water. The residues from these can be harsh on plants and will build up in the soil over time if you’re not careful. Rainwater is also slightly acidic, which helps create the soil conditions that the majority of plants prefer. 

Water butt harvesting saves money if you’re on a water meter

Outdoor water use accounts for around 7% of our total household water use on average, but on a hot summer day this can rise to over 50%! Don’t waste high quality metered drinking water on plants – use a watering can and saved rainwater to keep plants hydrated through the summer.

It mitigates flooding

If we all collected rainwater less water would run off the paved surfaces and flood the street drains. Unfortunately more and more front and back gardens get paved over, and water can no longer seep back into the ground. This precipitates flooding of streets and homes. Collecting water in water butts can be a wonderful way to mitigate this.

Councils now subsidise water butts by 60% or more

To encourage more residents to save rainwater, many councils have schemes providing subsidised water butts that can cut start-up costs to around £30 or less for a standard 200-litre water butt. Take a look at the council’s website to order yours. www.getcomposting.com

Water butts are quick and easy to install, and last for many years

Most water butts come with attachments that fit to your gutter’s down pipe. These divert the rainwater into the butt until it fills, allowing any excess water to flow away as normal. The instructions are clear and you need no great DIY skill. Even if there’s no access or room to attach a water butt to the main down pipe from your roof, you could still harvest nearly 640 litres of water a year from a 7ft by 5ft shed roof. That’s more than enough water to keep 50 tomato plants healthy for up to three months!

Water butts support the recycling industry

Most water butts are made from hardwearing recycled plastic, so your purchase helps to support Britain’s green industry and keep a chunk of useful material out of landfill.

If you want to write to us and have your own blog post & thoughts placed on this website to help others, please reach out to us via our Contact Us page!

– Justine McNeil and The Beautify Balham Team
Information sourced from https://blog.greenredeem.co.uk/

The Bees Knees

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When thinking about the word pollinator we tend to think of the fuzzy bumblebee, so it is amazing to realise that there are 1,500 species of insect pollinator in the UK including, not only the much loved bumblebee, but butterflies, moths, flies and beetles. Excitingly birds, bats and even monkeys are important pollinators in the rest of the world! But back to the streets of Balham…

We are lucky to live in a city that is almost 50% green space – nevertheless we can and should do more to support our threatened pollinators. Urban environments can even be seen as a refuge for biodiversity from intensively farmed agricultural landscapes.

If you want to make a difference, here are three easy steps to supporting local pollinators:

  1. Don’t use any pesticides;
  2. Grow plants with simple flower shapes;
  3. Aim for flowers all through the year.

Don’t use any pesticides

Insect populations have declined massively, and many put the blame on pollution through pesticide use. The best tactic is to not use them at all and garden organically.

Grow plants with simple flower shapes

Flower shapes evolved naturally to help encourage visits by pollinators. After all, the plants need pollinators to help them set seed. However, plant breeding by people has created more complex flower shapes, which are beautiful to the human eye but poorly adapted to pollinators. Avoid double and semi-double flowers to keep your pollinators happy.

Aim for flowers all through the year

The climate crisis is making our weather more unpredictable. We need to make sure that there is food available for pollinators at all times of the year in case unseasonable warmth brings hibernating insects out super early in the year, so we need to do a bit more planning for our planting schemes. Spring and summer are relatively easy seasons to keep the nectar flowing through lots of flowers, although there are some extra pollinator friendly plants I have listed below.

The plants listed here are great for nectar and pollen – but don’t forget that pollinators, just like humans, also need somewhere to live and raise their offspring.

Winter:

  • Hellebores
  • Snowdrops
  • Sweet box
  • Mahonia
  • Winter honeysuckle

Spring:

  • Catmint
  • Lungwort
  • Geranium species
  • Any of the flowering fruit trees like apple, plum and pear
  • Dandelion
  • Forget-me-not
  • Rosemary

Summer:
Oh my goodness – so many to choose from!
Just remember to keep flower shapes simple and avoid double and semi double. Some of the best are:

  • Lavender
  • Echium
  • Verbena bonariensis
  • Thyme
  • Oregano
  • Night scented stock (especially good for moths)

Autumn:

  • Asters
  • Japanese anemone
  • Simple (not double) dahlias
  • Common Ivy (also a great habitat provider)
  • Autumn flowering salvias
  • Ice plant (Sedum)

Following the three steps should bring a wealth of pollinators to your patch of space, no matter how small, and you will have made a difference. Happy pollinator spotting!

Hazel Norman – Chief Executive of the British Ecological Society – written in a personal capacity

If you want to write to us and have your own blog post & thoughts placed on this website to help others, please reach out to us via our Contact Us page!