Imagine a wilder world on your doorstep, with more nature everywhere in urban and rural areas. Read about how local residents created Mill Lane community garden in Chinnor, filled with features for wildlife, as part of Team Wilder.

Pam Coull, a volunteer with Mill Lane Community Garden talked to Rough Around the Edges Project Officer, Katie Horgan, about their project and the work Pam has been doing there.

Background
The idea for the community garden came up when a small area of land in a development was put aside as possible allotments. Some residents thought “a garden would be nice”, with Maureen Dyroff really being the driving force behind the idea.

Some of the residents put in a request for a community garden, and Lauretta Milligan and Maureen pushed for this. They secured a 10 year lease with Nicholas King, the builder, and then a local landscape designer supported us with ideas and helped with building the raised beds.

Why did you get involved?
I wanted to combine gardening and wildlife. I’m retired now so I have the freedom to help. I love gardening – I got this through my dad and grandad, as well as other family. I have my own garden which I planted to be a part of the Chilterns.

I’ve also known Maureen for a long time, and with a bit of arm-twisting I was hooked in and have helped out with open days. I love being creative and gardening.

What things have you done?
I don’t really want to claim anything for myself, we work together. It’s a collective of people, a group thing. Lauretta thinks similarly about wildlife to me, she has the same vision, with the bog area, for example.

It’s not one person doing everything but Maureen is driving the project, Michael Gill brings practical skills, Keith looks after the website – we value all skills. I also thinks it’s important for us to pass knowledge on.

Some examples of what the group have achieved include:

• Building and planting raised beds to grow vegetables
• Establishing a bog garden
• Installing solitary bee homes
• Planting native hedge
• Planting fruit trees
• Sowing wildflower seed
• Creating hedgehog habitat

What has been the impact – on others, on you, on wildlife?
There are lots of aspects to this. Learning, setting an example, showing alternatives, providing a garden for people who don’t have one.

It’s a big task to make the whole village aware that the garden is for everyone, there’s free food for all. With new houses, there are a lot of new people so we need community events, especially since the pandemic.

People who walked around the yearly scarecrow trail said they’d never been to this side of Chinnor. They are exploring and have started asking about the garden.

I think there’s also an impact on the volunteers and the people who pass by - everyone is welcome. It’s certainly a place for learning and getting new skills.

For me, I’m discovering what I have learnt from my dad. It’s early days for wildlife but we need the plants and space for them to move in – for example, we need mature trees.

What are your plans for the future?
We have ideas for running more activities for people and involving children more. The school is next to us and we want to work with schools. Some of us have backgrounds in early years teaching.

We have more raised beds to build and more planting to do. We’d also like to create an arbour.

We’d also like more volunteers to join us – at the moment we have 11-12 regular volunteers, with 28 people on the email list. Work parties are Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 9-11am.

Find out more about Mill Lane Community Garden