Jackwood House Garden
We are re-planting the garden with nature-friendly plants and structures.
The rose garden in Jackwood was created by the London Local Authority following the demolition of Jackwood (aka Mayfield) House in 1927. We don’t have records of when exactly the garden was laid out, nor the varities or numbers of the original planting but by 2018 very few healthy roses remained and the garden had several empty beds. Volunteers have worked hard to tend to the remaining roses and to remove weeds such as thistles and bind weed.
The generous grant received from the National Grid Electricity Transmission’s Community Grant Programme in 2024 is allowing us to repair the garden and to replant it with a nature-friendly planting scheme that will better cope with the changing climatic conditions.
In March, as the old roses began to wake from their winter rest, we sorted those which had reached the end of their life, from those whom might survive with some additional care. All the viable roses were lifted and either replanted in another area of the gardens, or adopted by 20 members of Friends of Oxleas Woodlands.
“Just wanted to share that one of the lovely rose bushes I adopted in March is thriving and had its first bloom. I've been away for a couple of days so think I missed it's prime, but it smells divine!! Thank you” - Susan
“Just wanted to say again a huge thank you for the roses, the red is starting to bloom and are absolutely stunning! Nothing from the yellow yet but it's hasn't died so keeping my fingers crossed!” - Emma
In May we purchased 170meters of metal edging to replace the wooden edging originally marking out the beds. In a previous garden restoration we removed the rotten wood edging and replaced with 10cm metal Everedge. This disruption de-stabilised the edge of the beds and left some holes.
Learning from this, we decided to leave the old edging in place and use 15cm metal edging to reinforce it. However, the different conditions of these beds (including the wood chip we had used to suppress weeds) made the deeper edging much harder to install and we were unable to complete it within our usual two-hour volunteer session.
Our volunteers gave extra hours and drafted in the support of others to complete the job in a total of 74 volunteer hours.
In July we took delivery of 1,200 litres of horse manure from a local stables, and 16 bulk bags of organic compost from a garden supplier. We advertised for a Big Community Dig which attracted in one completely new volunteer, and six volunteers who hadn’t volunteered with the gardening before, as well as eight regular volunteers. Together they donated 60.5 volunteer hours on the one day. Most importantly, in a carefully orchestrated plan we dug a mixture of peat-free compost and nutrient-rich manure into the beds and began to bed-in some of the free plants which had been salvaged from thinning out of nearby gardens or grown from cuttings by our volunteers.
Our plant list was approved by Greenwich Council Parks Department in August, and we began work with a local nursery to finalise the varieties and amounts that will be planted in the autumn.
However, we had some additional jobs to do before planting – the building of our stag beetle pyramid and the installation of two bug hotels.
For months we had been collecting recently cut dead wood (cut for safety reasons in other areas of the woods) ready for the task of building a stag beetle pyramid. Then during our August volunteer session our team of volunteers dug a very big hole, and used some very long screws to secure in place our very large collection of old oak branches. With the soil pilled back in around them we have a much-admired structure which will provide a breeding ground for stag-beetles, a home for many invertebrates and a support for climbing plants.
Meanwhile, Duncan and Alastair had been using recycled wood and other materials to create a bespoke pair of bug hotels which we installed in September. If you'd like to make your own garden more wildlife friendly contact Wildlife Woodwork to see what Duncan has available.
