Beautify Balham

Striving for a greener, cleaner and more beautiful Balham.

Nature

Why The Right to Grow in Wandsworth would be a fantastic initiative

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Want to grow food but don’t have the space? Stuck on an allotment waiting list?
Interested in nature recovery or greening your neighbourhood?
We know there’s a lack of accessible spaces in the city where we can grow food,
enjoy nature and connect with others. But what if we could unlock unused spaces in
our neighbourhoods for exactly this?
Imagine how much greener, more nature-friendly and food-secure our borough could
become. Communities coming together to care for shared spaces, a greater sense of
ownership of our environment, and the foundations for stronger communities and a
healthier planet.
This is all possible. We just need to make it easier for communities to access unused
land. Other boroughs are already taking steps in this direction, and Wandsworth
could be next!

What is the Right to Grow?

The Right to Grow is a national and local campaign calling on councils to make it
easier for local communities to turn suitable, unused public land into spaces for
growing food, supporting biodiversity and bringing people together.
Councils are beginning to put this into practice. Hounslow has introduced its Go
Forth and Grow for the Future policy, while Hackney Council adopted a Right to
Grow motion in March 2026. We’re calling on Wandsworth Council to follow their
lead.
In practice, this would mean an official map of potential spaces, available to all
residents, alongside support to help make them accessible when a group comes
together to request one. Pretty simple, right?

Why we need it?

Wandsworth Council already has its Wild Wandsworth Biodiversity Action Plan, and
the London Plan Policy G8 recognises the importance of green infrastructure,
including urban food growing. The Right to Grow could help turn these ambitions into
action by giving communities more opportunities to care for and improve local
spaces.
Recent warnings about the vulnerability of our food supply to extreme weather and
other disruptions are another reminder that we need to think about food security.
While keeping some supplies at home can help in an emergency, we also need
longer-term solutions that strengthen our communities and our food systems.

Imagine neighbourhoods where people can grow food together, create welcoming
green spaces, help manage rainwater and local flooding, give children places to play,
or simply provide somewhere for neighbours to sit and chat in the shade.
These spaces can bring people together, encourage people to learn from one
another and help nature thrive. They can also build the connections and practical
skills we need to prepare for a changing climate.
Beautify Balham and their initiatives are, through their various planting projects,
laying the foundations for this to happen in Balham. Working together to make this a
council led scheme would be incredibly powerful and impactful.

We Need You!

There are three ways you can get involved:

  1. Sign the petition and support The Right to Grow in Wandsworth.
  2. Help us identify unused spaces. If you know of somewhere that could be
    transformed, submit it using this form. Your suggestions will feed into our
    open-source map    , which we plan to share with the council.
  3. Get involved in the campaign. Email dpateln@gmail.com to join our
    WhatsApp group and help us make the Right to Grow a reality in Wandsworth.

Article by Dipa Patel – Transition Town Tooting

Why Tree Pit Planting Is Transforming Our Streets

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More Than Just a Tree

Walk down most roads and you’ll notice a lonely tree standing in a square patch of bare soil, hemmed in by pavement, struggling in its little island of dirt. It doesn’t have to be this way. That modest square metre at the base of a street tree, the tree pit, is one of the most overlooked opportunities for urban greening we have.

A Small Space, A Big Difference for Biodiversity

A single street tree is incredibly valuable, but a tree planted in dead ground supports far less life than one surrounded by planting. Fill that pit with nectar-rich flowers and suddenly you’ve created a miniature habitat that could link to others and create a green corridor. Poppies, cornflowers, marigolds, and verbena offer pollen and nectar through the seasons, while foxgloves, knapweed, and teasel provide food for bees, butterflies, and seed-eating birds. Ferns and hellebores give shelter for insects and ground beetles, while fennel serves butterfly caterpillars.

Crucially, species diversity matters. A mix of plants flowering from spring bulbs (crocuses, daffodils, hyacinths) through summer favourites like honeysuckle, rudbeckia, and aster right into autumn means nectar and pollen are available almost year-round. Pollinators no longer need to travel between disconnected parks, they can hop from pit to pit, tree to tree, creating a living network along the entire street. Add in leaf litter and stems left over winter, and your tree pit becomes an overwintering refuge for insects.

Nature’s Sponge: Slowing the Flow of Rain

Paved cities have a problem: rain has nowhere to go. Water flows down pavements and roads, overwhelming drains, picking up pollution, and contributing to flash flooding. Every bit of permeable ground helps to alleviate the run-off and prevent overflowing sewage systems.

Tree pit planting turns a compacted, water-shedding square of earth into a living sponge. Soil rich with roots and organic matter absorbs rainfall rather than shedding it, and plant foliage intercepts rain before it even hits the ground. Perennials like astrantia, geranium, and nepeta spread their roots through the soil, improving infiltration and holding moisture through dry spells, which helps the tree itself. Residents sometimes worry that planting will “take water away” from the tree, but well-chosen groundcover species generally coexist happily with a healthy sapling, and the shared soil benefits everyone.

Planting also suppresses weeds, protects the soil from compaction and from being trampled. It keeps moisture during hot summers, meaning less watering is needed, resulting in a healthier and more resilient tree.

Tomato plant in tree pit

Growing Community, One Pit at a Time

Perhaps the most underrated benefit of tree pit planting is entirely human. These small projects invite residents to roll up their sleeves together: choosing plants, digging, planting, watering through the summer, and admiring the results.

Neighbours who might otherwise never speak end up trading cuttings, plants, tips, and watering duties. It’s a wonderful way for residents to collaborate and create social cohesion. Beautification of a street through planting signals that someone cares for this patch of street, which tends to reduce littering and dumping.

Whether organised as a street-wide effort or quietly started by one household, tree pit planting gives residents a shared, tangible stake in their neighbourhood. Few things build goodwill quite like a sunflower growing defiantly out of the pavement.

Choosing Your Plants: Some Guidance

Not every plant is suited to sharing soil with a young tree. Avoid:

  • Woody or competitive plants like lavender and rosemary, which will compete with the sapling for water and nutrients
  • Ivy and Winstead-variety climbers such as wisteria, which can smother and shade young trees

Instead, favour herbaceous perennials and annuals that fill the space without outcompeting the tree. A suggested list includes:

  • Pollinator favourites: poppies, cornflower, marigold, zinnia, calendula, knapweed, nepeta (catmint), verbena
  • Shade-tolerant choices: hellebores, ferns, cyclamen, foxgloves (Digitalis purpurea), astrantia
  • Long-season interest: rudbeckia, red valerian, red campion, wallflower, lychnis, aster ageratoides, achillea, geum
  • Herbs with benefits: mint (best contained to prevent spreading) and fennel
  • Spring cheer from bulbs: daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths, and tulips planted in autumn

Mix heights, colours, and flowering times to give year-round interest and support for wildlife.

A couple extra tips:
Please don’t add any raised edging around the tree base as it’s likely to become a trip hazard for pedestrians, prams, and wheelchairs.
Avoid raising the soil level against the trunk of the tree as the moisture will cause it to decay, and ultimately jeopardise its health.

Start Small, Dream Big

You don’t need a park or a budget to bring nature back to your street. Start with one tree pit, a handful of seeds, and a conversation with your neighbour. The bees will find you first. The neighbours won’t be far behind.

Have you seen a lonely tree needing company? Have you turned a tree pit into a habitat haven? Let us know your tree pit planting tips & stories!
– The Beautify Balham Team

Endlesham Road June 2025 Update

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Planting along Endlesham Road has steadily progressed since our first intervention
back in October 2024. The students from Hornsby House Primary School have been
a huge help in clearing the plot of weeds and turning the soil but also in watering the
plants. As some of you may have noticed, rainfall has been limited this spring and
consequently the plants have struggled to mature, and watering is essential. The
student’s boundless enthusiasm in getting stuck into the various tasks is a joy to
watch and they’ve become learned gardeners. With a couple more weeks before the
beginning of the summer holidays, we aim to add more plants, compost, and make
sure the plants get plenty of water.


The idea is to create green stepping stones along our streets and allow insects to
travel between the larger green spaces such as Wandsworth Common and Tooting
Common. It’s also a fabulous way for children to learn about plants and the complex
networks of roots, mycelium, worms and other underground organisms. Students are
often a little fearful on their first visit to the plot but by the end of one session most of
them are happy to hold a worm.

Planting along these forgotten spaces in Balham is also a wonderful way to beautify
the streets that are often paved and bare. We’re fortunate to have plenty of green
front gardens in the area but more flowers, hedges and meadows adds biodiversity,
and a real sense of community & pride in the area. If you would like to participate
in planting in other forgotten corners of Balham, do get in touch with us.

Lastly, if you happen to be walking along the Endlesham Road plot over the summer months
and notice the plants are looking a little sad, please water them. Our team won’t be
able to tend to the plot on a weekly basis, so a little helping hand will go a long way.

The Beautify Balham Team

Climate Fresk

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Climate change is a scary notion.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could discover ways of taking direct action?

France, Paris, 2022-12-14. Illustration of the Climate fresk workshops to raise awareness of climate change. Photograph by Mary-Lou Mauricio / Hans Lucas. France, Paris, 2022-12-14. Illustration de l’atelier de la Fresque du Climat pour sensibiliser au dereglement climatique. Photographie par Mary-Lou Mauricio / Hans Lucas.

Cedric Ringenbach, a French engineer, came up with an ingenious idea. He came up with an interactive game, Climate Fresk, that works with the general public and organisations to bring them on board with the climate transition and their mission is to educate the public. In doing so participants are given the opportunity to take constructive and direct action to help tackle climate change. Their ambition is to create a network of people who are able to grow exponentially and share the knowledge on climate change and in doing so reach a social tipping point that will help guide us to a low carbon world. They’ve had 1.5 million participants so far!

How does this work?
The general public is welcome to attend a 3hrs workshop either in person or online. A facilitator – a Climate Fresk volunteer – will teach the participants how climate change works, and empower them to take effective action as a citizen (a maximum of 20 participants per facilitator is permitted). Companies are also welcome to sponsor employees and specific workshops bring together participants from different companies where they are able to explore the levers of action. Within a professional context.

Check out their website to find a workshop next to you – www.climatefresk.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!