Gardens

Working in close partnership with Islington Parks Service, we are the proud custodians of 5 diverse local green spaces, growing and maintaining seasonal food, flowerbeds, trees, and encouraging insects and wildlife to re-enter the urban ecosystem.

Our Gardens started as a series of small, raised beds built by volunteers during the first lockdown, with an objective to provide fresh produce for our food bank.

The gardens have since developed into a series of garden squares and several food growing areas. We have big plans for the future and we are currently developing the gardens into havens for residents and wildlife alike, significantly increasing biodiversity and using the spaces as areas to train local people in urban permaculture and horticulture.

Explore the Gardens

 

Our Gardens

  • PACKINGTON SQUARE

    Packington Square is a real asset for the community, a sunny garden square featuring a playground, basketball court and a stunning 100 year Chilean Palm (Planted by AiR). Its beds are bursting with colourful flowers, pollinators and beautiful shrubbery.

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  • CANALSIDE SQUARE

    Canalside Square has been transformed into a mini native aboretum now featuring close to 30 trees of varied species including stunning examples of twisted willows, white willows Hawthornes, scotch pines and over 30m of Hawthorne hedging all donated from the shows.

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  • Towpath Orchard

    Our Towpath is home to biodiversity and humans alike. On this site we focus both on caretaking for ornamental plants home to our pollinator friends as well as producing food for our Foodbank. On this site we also have a compost system that breaks down all the garden waste we produce across the 5 sites as well as all the coffee waste from our Cafe.

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  • Rheidol Terrace

    The CFS generously donated along with shrubs, a variety of roses that we planted on this site.

    These roses bring great joy to both residents and pollinators.

    Our main focus here is to tend to a variety of shrubs and roses.

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  • ARC Beds

    Our beds in front of the ARC have been expertly designed to represent and accommodate all parts of the project.

    You'll notice that on the foodbank side we have a food crop rotation. On the cafe side we focused on low maintenance plants that are both beautiful and scented. On the yoga side we focused on herbs and medicinal plants one could use in herbal medicine.

    Our newest addition being our cold frame so we can look after our seedligs.

    The maintenance of these beautiful beds offers a great variety of knowledge.

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Volunteer at the Gardens

Resident

There’s all sorts of work to do in the gardens.  Tasks change seasonally and can be adapted to everyone’s ability. Join our team of volunteer gardeners for real life learning and skills development in horticulture, urban permaculture, and community development. See our class and workshop schedule below. We run on a no need to sign up basis. Simply come to a session that suits your schedule. On your first time coming to a session arrive 5mins before at The ARC.

Corporate

If your organisation is looking to create real lasting change in the community, assist residents into accessing green space and develop areas that will attract and support native wildlife in the heart of the city then please get in touch. Teams of up to 24 can be accommodated with a small per head contribution required to cover staff time, materials, and project development.

Donate

Help ARC Collective with its mission to create tangible and positive change in the local community for the benefit of everyone. If you would like to support the gardens and help us create, develop and maintain these beautiful garden spaces for everyone to enjoy and create areas that support and foster native wildlife and support local residents skills development, please consider donating.

Donations to our Gardens help us cover the cost of materials, staff time and they also contribute to The ARC’s essential overheads.

Gardening Sessions & Workshops

Join our Garden Team for real life learning and skills development in horticulture, urban permaculture, and community development. There’s sessions every week as well as specialist workshops.