my other garden - at DITO
By franl155
17 comments
DITO is a not-for-profit company run for and by disabled people in Tower Hamlets (DITO stands for Disabled Information and Training Opportunity). It’s based in what was originally a Victorian home for disabled people but is now a resource centre for a range of disabled organisations (it’s to be demolished this year, but a special school will go up instead, so the site will keep its “disabled” connection.)
One of the things that caught my interest right from the start was the courtyard garden (it’s supposed to be a communal garden for the whole building, but the entrance is through the DITO office so it’s “our” garden).
There’s three raised beds, one of which used to be a pond; when I first saw them they were growing a healthy crop of four-foot nettles and similar; I kept “hinting” to the management about getting the space regenerated …
Eventually we got them planted (with the generous physical and financial aid of a team of bankers doing a “good turn”). I’d got most of the weeds out already, and I asked for all the beds to be dug out at least 50cm down so that we could top up with at least 30cn of fresh soil (the beds hadn’t been refreshed since they’d been built!). That would leave room for a good layer of bark topping, I thought.
Then it was up to “us” to keep it nice. I say “us” because actually it was up to me – about a dozen people said they’d join the “garden gang”, but none ever did. So I got stuck in – all the way in!
I soon found out that if the beds had been taken down even 5cm that was a long way! I was finding half-bricks and suchlike just under the surface, so eventually I dug up all the plants from one bed and put them back into pots; then I dug the bed down to ground level – they’d filled them right to the brim, so I had to take out several sacks of soil to give me room to work.
I had to do it dot-and-carry – dig a patch, taking out the bricks as I went, fill it in with the excavation from the next patch, and so on until I’d done it all. It has to be the hardest way to dig a bed (some of that soil was probably moved half-a-dozen times!) but it was the only way to do it. Then I dug up the plants from the second bed and planted them in the first, and then dug that one, and then put the plants from the first bed into the second one (didn’ t get to the third bed, as it had been taken over by another group while I was digging the second).
I went at least once a week and spent whole afternoons each time – it took me a few months to do it all, but, oh, the satisfaction when I’d put the last plant back in! I’d taken out enough bricks and lumps of concrete to build a 30×45×90cm stack against a wall. The largest single piece was a complete paving slab (top corner less than 10cm under the surface) – that alone took over a week to dig out and three people to lift out of the bed.
But the end result was worth every ache, every twinge; it looked GOOD. Of course, getting it looking good is only half the job; keeping it so is the other, and that’s never-ending.
But it’s fun – or it was. To look at it and think “I did that, it’s ALL my work” was deeply satisfying. It’s worn off a bit since I got my own garden (actually it had started wearing off before that, with everyone using the courtyard but leaving the picking-up of plastic cups, crisp packets and dog-ends to me).
I feel a bit guilty about neglecting it: it was down to me that we got the plants in the first place, so I feel a responsibility. lol they’re my babies, I raised them, I should keep looking after them.
But the whole building is closing down later this year, so there’s little motivation to continue to keep it looking good – if there’s no garden space at the new location all these plants must be found homes, or get chucked by the contractors.
Still, it was good while it lasted.
The undated photos were taken on 10th September 2007, before excavations began – the others were taken a couple of years later.
bed 2
bed 2 – bed 1 in bg
bed 4
bed 4
bed 3
bed 3
20 May, 2011
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Comments
realy good fran,and i know you can find homes for your plants after all that hard work,maybe a plant sale
20 May, 2011
thank you both! I did already start potting the plants and leaving them for anyone who wanted, but i got told that there was no rush, there were months to go yet.
It was therapy for me, doing that, even the digging-out; the feeling that I was really putting my back into something (literally, lol) and that the end result would be worth it. It was, too!
It's a shame it has to come down: the building's been there about 170 years, and some of the original features are still in place - the DITO office is the old Victorian dining room! still, I suppose that's progress. At least they're not building luxury appartments that no one can afford or yet more office space that no one wants.
20 May, 2011
That looks great Fran, it can be heartbreaking putting all that work into making an area somewhere lovely to sit, and then people don't respect it by leaving rubbish behind! It's not much to ask!! It's a credit to you Fran, and shows if you can do it there, you can work wonders at home!
20 May, 2011
thanks, Libet, and I have a tad more incentive at home: I don't have to get two buses to get to it!
20 May, 2011
Well! that's always a bonus when your garden is literally on your doorstep, Lol!;0)
20 May, 2011
That was interesting to read. Well done for your efforts. I hope the new place has a garden. It will be so beneficial, - but then who's going to look after it. But I do believe a garden would help the disabled people and staff aswell. It lifts one's spirit.
21 May, 2011
indeed, Libet! It could take up to 90 minutes to get there, depending on how long I had to wait for the two buses needed (and the same to get home, of course). My enthusiasm went in step with the seasons and the weather; late November, dark early, cold, often wet ...
That's one of the reasons I gave to people who said, "Why don't you get an allotment?" Apart from there being a waiting list, and the fun I'd have getting spades and forks and all other tools and equipment there by bus-es - and apart from *that*, it's really hard work to do it properly - and I doubt they'd let me build raised beds!
21 May, 2011
agree, Hywel. I envisoned it as an inclusive chill-out zone and tried to get as many different senses involved as possible.
I planned to buy a lot of scented plants, both flowers and foliage, the kind that, lightly crushed, will give off scent, and others with varying textures of foliage.
I also had a "sensory table", with some small plastic baskets of "touch-me" items: seashells, stones with interesting textures, unusually-shaped bits of plastic, wood with various grains, and so on.
And I wanted some plants lower down and close to or overlapping the bed edges, so that people in wheelchairs could interact with them.
ah well, if the new place has a garden, and if I can get to it fairly easily - and if I get re-motivated ...
21 May, 2011
It would have been a wonderful place :)
22 May, 2011
It would have looked wonerful if I'd been able to do all that I wanted, lol and if *I'd* been able to all that I wanted.
That was my first go at real gardening (I'd begun to take on another communcal garden a few years before, but I rapidly lost interest when it emerged that all they wanted was someone to sweep up the leaves and other things on that level) so I had highly unrealistic expectations - I went through all my plant books and listed all the plants that might be useful, noting size, flowering period, flower and foliage colour of about a hundred flowers, shrubs, small trees ... pages and pages of it! Ah well, that might come in handy for home - or for when I get my biiiiiiiiiig garden!.
22 May, 2011
It would have looked wonerful if I'd been able to do all that I wanted, lol and if *I'd* been able to all that I wanted.
That was my first go at real gardening (I'd begun to take on another communcal garden a few years before, but I rapidly lost interest when it emerged that all they wanted was someone to sweep up the leaves and other things on that level) so I had highly unrealistic expectations - I went through all my plant books and listed all the plants that might be useful, noting size, flowering period, flower and foliage colour of about a hundred flowers, shrubs, small trees ... pages and pages of it! Ah well, that might come in handy for home - or for when I get my biiiiiiiiiig garden!.
22 May, 2011
don't know why that posted twice, sorry! I didn't think the first one had taken so I "refreshed" and then it took. I've only just seen it's in twice and I don't seem able to delete one of them now - I obviously didn't notice while the "edit comment" window was still open.
23 May, 2011
That happens sometimes. I sent a private message once and it came out 3 times lol Probably something I did wrong :o)
23 May, 2011
at least you didn't reach the same level as the bloke who gave us the word "spam" - believe he sent out his email a few hundred times!
sigh, if this pc went any slower it'd be going backwards! -it's long overdue a spring clean, but it's always "later".
23 May, 2011
This site is slow aswell so maybe that's what's wrong. They did something to it a few weeks ago, to make it go faster but I don't think it's worked lol. It is soooo s-l-o-w :( Sometimes I just give up ....
24 May, 2011
nods and grins, when I first started getting busy in GoY, few weeks ago, posts would zip into place, no probs. It's only been the last week or so - hmm, since they stasrted "improving" things?
Now I just click the "add comment", count to ten, then click the link to my news page - when I check my comments it's there - but I select all and copy, just in case - lol as I'm going to do before I "add" this comment!
ps, just checked, yep, it's there!
24 May, 2011
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What a lot of work you have put in Fran and what a shame it is going to be pulled down but you must be very proud at what you have achieved:)
20 May, 2011