Our Gardeners have gone and done it again!
We are proud to say that the Windmill Garden has achieved further recognition at this year’s Royal Horticultural Society London in Bloom Awards, and at Havering in Bloom.
At London in Bloom at Kensington Town Hall the team achieved;
Judged Garden - Level 5 Outstanding [the highest award possible]
Environmental Challenge - Gold Award
Gardening with Young People - Silver Gilt
Biodiversity - Silver Gilt
At Havering in Bloom at Havering Town Hall the team won;
Best Communal Garden - for a third year!
The Garden Team are especially proud of these outcomes given the challenges of a very prolonged hot summer in 2026 where volunteers were only able to water once a week – an exhausting task in the heat before the hosepipe ban, but a marathon subsequently when only able to use filled watering cans - by the hundred!
Despite the heat and drought there have been many highlights.
The bog garden, planted in May, miraculously survived thanks to recycling a donated large planter containing a reservoir, regularly topped up with water. We still have resident frogs in our tiny ponds – a visitor recently spotted a tiny froglet sunning itself on the edge.
Purple and orange flowering plants continued to attract pollinators like bees, hover flies, ladybird larvae and moths – plants such as California poppies, marigolds, achillea, lavender, agapanthus, verbena bonariensis.
The fruit trees produced a small crop of pears, apples, cherries and plums – most of which were eaten by birds or fell early to provide food for insects.
Wheat, planted in November 2025, thrived and survived the heat until a family of foxes made a nice dry bed in the centre! We harvested what was left in July and are preparing the bed for a new sowing this November.
We are still learning - and helping others with their learning.
A review of the garden in early September surprised us as we identified a list of 50 plants that appeared to be drought tolerant – we will divide and plant more of those this Autumn.
We have taken part in a citizen science project by Public Health England – monitoring the spread of Tiger mosquitos across Europe.
We continue to use wheat grown and harvested in the garden to show school children and visitors how to thresh and grind wheat into flour manually with a hand quern.
New bug hotels and habitat stacks have been created by Routes4Life students on placement and one, using an old wooden drawer, is a thing of beauty made by one of the Mill workshop volunteers.
None of this could have been achieved without the hard work and dedication of the volunteers that turn up every Tuesday, in sweltering heat or rain. All the work is not for the awards - much more important are all the wonderful comments from visitors on open days.
Just think of our volunteers now as they are busy again working on digging out and refurbishing the compost heaps – a very exhausting and dirty job but worth it for the black gold to be found at the bottom which will be used to top-dress the beds ready for winter.
Come and see the garden again this year on our final two open days, 25th October (when it will be part of Spooky Sunday) and 19th December, our Christmas Market.
