Beautify Balham

Striving for a greener, cleaner and more beautiful Balham.

Community

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

Beautify Balham Joins Forces for The Great British Spring Clean 2025

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On Saturday 5th April 2025, we were delighted to surpass our target for this year’s Great British Spring Clean: collecting an impressive 25 bags of litter, well above our original
pledge of 20.

The morning saw a fantastic turnout, with 28 volunteers taking part, including 10 new
faces joining our growing team. It was a pleasure to see such a wide range of
participants united by a shared commitment to a cleaner Balham.

Among the volunteers was a particularly enthusiastic 4-year-old, who enjoyed the
morning so much he continued litter picking across Tooting Common throughout the
afternoon. We were also joined by five Japanese students currently studying in
London, who travelled from West London to take part, as well as a visitor from
Belgium, adding an international touch to the day.

We were especially pleased to welcome our local MP, Dr Rosena Allin-Khan,
accompanied by her daughter, along with Councillor Lyndsey Hedges. Their support
was greatly appreciated and contributed to the strong sense of community on the
day.

Despite the ongoing challenges posed by littering in the area, the enthusiasm and
community spirit were truly inspiring. We were also fortunate to have glorious
weather, which made the event even more enjoyable.

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who took part and helped make a real difference.

If you joined in with our litter pick, or in the Great British Spring Clean this year, let us know on Instagram at @beautifybalham

Endlesham Road Community Garden

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We identified a piece of land belonging to the council in Endlesham Road near Churchcroft Close. On Sunday 27th October 2024, with the help of volunteers and residents, we cleared the rubbish and weeds. We received a microgrant from Wandsworth that helped fund our initial planting, and then went on to plant some shrubs and plants kindly donated by the Wimbledon Tennis Club – left over from the tournament. We also planted lots of Spring bulbs that will hopefully brighten the plot in March and April this year.

It was a great success! It was great to see how residents helped with watering and making cups of tea, and the land looked so much better afterwards. You can see the results for yourself on our Instagram!

We are to continue this month, February 2025, as the council has removed some snowberry bushes that were getting very straggly. We are going to replace them with hawthorn and spindleberry.

Would you like to help us?
Please contact us or email hello@beautifybalham.org to find out more and to join our next planting!

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.

Balham in Bloom 2023

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Our third Balham in Bloom competition was yet another wonderful celebration of the beautiful gardens of Balham and the gardening skill of our residents.

A new category was added – Best Balham Street – to the traditional list of Best Front Garden and Best Hanging Basket & Window Box, and we may add another in 2024.
Watch this space!

This year we were joined by Balham Climate Action, who are a newly formed local action group of Friends of the Earth. There was of course the traditional planting of
flowers for all ages and then the Beautify Balham team practised some standing up yoga, guided by the talented Anh, founder of Music Yoga Flow.

We were very grateful to our judges – professional gardeners Cheryle Morison, Wayne Amiel and Gareth James – for selecting the winners amidst a record number of entries.

The winners and runner ups were celebrated and received their much-deserved prizes from Helen Egan, our Balham resident and world-renowned Irish dancer. She was the former lead dancer in Lord of The Dance, the Irish musical and dance show and alongside Michael Flatley danced to sold out crowds around the world. Helen was the original dancer to play the character, the Little Spirit, who is at the centre of a story that sees good ultimately overcome evil. A massive thank you to her for participating in our event!

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the local businesses who kindly donated the prizes:

We look forward to our 4th Balham in Bloom on Saturday the 15th of June 2024. If you are interested in participating in a future Balham in Bloom, you can register today!
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.

The Triangle Garden at Chestnut Grove

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Armed with forks and trowels and wearing Beautify Balham hi-vis vests, together we are going to continue the wonderful work started by local residents Richard, Charlie and Brendan. This garden is on land that no one seems to own, but has been adopted for many years and admired by passers by.

Sadly Richard died, and Charlie and Brendan have hung up their gardening gloves, but they generously asked Beautify Balham to continue their good work.

Justine and Jean from Beautify Balham decided it would be a good idea for children to be involved so asked the local schools. Mark Peters, Deputy Head from Hornsby House School responded.

Each Thursday from 3.45-4.30pm until daylight diminishes, we are going to tidy up and replant this mature garden that just needs a little TLC and some more plants to fill the gaps.

If anyone has bulbs or plants to give to this worthy cause, or could support with a donation to make towards the upkeep, please contact us at hello@beautifybalham.org or donate via PayPal using the form here.

Watch this space & enjoy the cleaning up and greening up of another corner of Balham!

– Jean Millar and The Beautify Balham Team

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!