A new community garden has been planted at Herbert Art Gallery & Museum in an effort to "green up" the city centre. The new garden has been in development for around 12 months but is now open.

The project has been created by leisure company CV Life staff and local community groups, including Coventry Urban Eden (CUE). Cue has planted a host of flowers and plants which have now bloomed creating a colourful haven in the city.

Local homeless charity Crisis donated some specially-made Coventry blue tiles for the project, while gardening company Hozelock donated a number of watering products to help keep the plants healthy. On top of this, Warwickshire Wildlife Trust and West Midlands Combined Authority provided funding for the garden.

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Lisa Ford, head of learning and engagement at Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, said: "We want to bring loads of community groups into this space and let them have ownership. We really want to make people feel like this is their place, a common ground where different people can connect together. You can really find peace in nature, taking a seat in the shade, watching bees going into flowers - it calms you down instantly.”

She added: "It’s special because it’s in an urban landscape - there are lots of concrete buildings, so having a little bit of greenery definitely helps create a sense of peace amongst the noise and the bustle. Here at the museum, we are a place of sanctuary where people feel comfortable and relaxed, helping with mental health and wellbeing.

"We want people to feel happy coming to us and the garden can be a big part of that as it connects people with nature and gives another reason to engage - when visiting a museum you see the outside first so this is a really nice way to welcome people. So we also want to see art in this space. We want to fill it with colour and spark creativity - it’s really a fantastic blank canvas to do that.

“It’s a grand scheme with grand ideas but we’re doing it with baby steps. We envisage a lot of creativity - planting and growing but also connecting to and cherishing the city’s heritage through the plants we grow. We’ll be planting heritage seeds, woad so dye can be extracted which links us to the Weavers Guild and St Marys - we really want to build that into our plans.

The garden has been built by local community groups
The garden has been built by local community groups

“But there is the need of our communities as well - food poverty, cost of living, so we have ambitions to start growing food. We’re a bit limited due to space, but what we do grow will be given back to communities.”

Amanda Haran, the museum's community engagement coordinator, said: “Our community garden has been a real passion project of mine. Being able to collaborate with so many different groups has been fantastic.

“Seeing it bloom into life in recent weeks has been such a joy and I’m so happy to know that this garden will serve Coventry’s communities for years to come."

Discussing CUE’s involvement in the garden, member Linda said: “Coventry is quite concrete, it hasn’t always been, I remember Broadgate being very green and the precinct being full of trees. But a lot of that is gone, and people are crying out for somewhere in the city centre to sit or have their lunch or meet mates. I think lockdown made people aware of the importance of greenspaces - they can have a huge benefit on mental health, it brings people together and that’s before you get to the environmental benefits.”

Teamspringboard CIC, a not-for-profit community enterprise, say they played a key role in the event. Esther Kovacs, horticultural manager, said: "We were invited in as horticultural experts and planned everything and advised about plants and growing, had our own volunteers come along when hauling three tonnes of compost to fill the raised beds up and organised things with the carpenter.

"We can hopefully take part in teaching about growing and wildlife in the future there. Unique Woodcraft has done an amazing job making the raised beds. Helen Needham from the Foleshill Community Centre has applied for the funding, organised this and other two greening projects, and their volunteers also helped with the compost and building."

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