Wirral’s community growing project ‘Flourishes’ at Southport Flower Show
Riviera Environmental Management (REM), supported by Magenta Living, has recently created an award winning garden with their show stopping ‘Cool Courtyard’ at the prestigious Southport Flower Show. Ian Jones joined forces to build the show garden with the help and skills of ‘Flourish’ who are a community project based in Woodchurch.
Working as a community co-operative in conjunction with Magenta Living, Ian and the team of volunteers, came together in just 4 days to build the garden. The aim of the project was to give the public ideas on how to transform a bare yard or backyard into a courtyard space.
Ian Jones who project managed and designed the ‘Cool Courtyard’ along with Damian McGregor, Mike Dooley and Kevin Thorpe says: "I am really grateful for the help and support given by Magenta Living for backing us. It was a tremendous achievement with only a small budget of less than £400. I wish to personally say thank you to the Flourish project who provided all their time as volunteers to win a Silver medal award from the judges at Southport flower show. It was a real team effort, great fun and just goes to show what we can achieve with unwanted materials, the public at the show loved our design and were really inspired as it gave them realistic ideas to create in their own gardens and backyards”.
Magenta Living supplied items from void properties which were recycled by the team to transform them into unique and low-cost garden features. This included an old bath from which to grow fruit & vegetables, a builders crate for pollinating plants, trellis for climbing plants and a water feature. The courtyard was entirely built with voluntary help and this accolade demonstrates what can be achieved when communities work together. Following on from the Show the plan is to uproot the recycled materials from the show stand and re-create it to a permanent position for residents in Woodchurch.
Magenta Living allowed one of their apprentice’s Sam Hodgson to join the garden team and Ian said “Sam was really enthusiastic and he rose to the challenge in making great use of his joinery skills to build the frames for the bath planter and water feature. My hope now is that we will be getting together as a community team to build on our success and encourage more residents who want to try gardening to join us and get involved with the Flourish project”.
