What looks nice locally, but it won't work in our road . . .

This is a two-way cycle-way on a one-way road 

On Ronalds Road, up near Highbury Fields, there's this two-way cycle way on the one-way road. As you can see there's quite a lot of lovely specially-made planters up there. They're about half a metre deep, and that's enough for trees and shrubs.

If our road was ever made one way, then there just might be room for a narrowed roadway and wide pavements, so that these substantial planters would fit.

Alternatively, if we were to give up a bit of our parking strip, then we'd have enough space (over 3.0 m wide) to install one of these bespoke planters.

This begs the question 'How much do these planters cost to make and install ?

Who wants one ? Who wants to lose a car-parking space near their dwelling ?

Tree pit on the pavement

Again on Ronalds Road, this is a lovely planter area around the tree pit. It'll never work in our road, although it looks pretty nifty, because our pavements are never more than 1.8 m (the old six feet) wide.

It works here as the property behind has a rounded boundary, and there's enough room to walk behind the tree pit on that pavement behind.

It would work in our road if we had a widened pavement with a tree pit/ planter area in the parking strip (as I showed in a n earlier post; that's over on Monsell Road, if you'd like to pop over a have a quick gander at it).

First steps in Greening . . .

Nearby St Thomas' Road has substantial wildflower beds around some of its trees. They've been there for some years now . . .

Simple and easy to do, and a range of wildflowers thrive in this bed

This is a flower garden in the parking strip on the next road, Monsell Road

What do we think we might do in our road ? We had a first meeting yesterday, four of us showed up, with another few saying apologies. I think we've got ten or more residents who would like to commit to making our road look prettier, and to work towards a more neighbourly feel in our small road.

We might try and get a 'bike shed' to drop in the parking strip to keep tools and equipment in, for when we get seriously working on tree gardens and gro-bags in front gardens. They look like this

They make smaller ones, on the same principle, lockable and secure.

What do we think is important when we're just starting out ?

Keeping it simple, and focus on a few goals.

Find organisations that will help us with donations of seeds, soil, planters, tools and so on.

Don't try and do too much. Maybe work on one or two tree gardens, and a few front garden grow-bags. We can make it bigger later, as we get support from more of our neighbours in the future.

We need to get back to the Council with questions about the best way to install the edging for the tree gardens, so that we don't create a trip hazard for pedestrians and prams.

If we're going to organise geo-bags for front gardens we'll ned to identify who can have one in their tiny front garden, and equally important, who amongst us will do the planting and the weeding and the tidying and the watering throughout the season . . .

I said I'd write to DIY and garden centres, asking them for donations to start our project. Apparently some firms have a budget that can be used to help small groups like ourselves. Fingers crossed, then.

Obviously we have a few trowels and a rake and shovel and seeds and a few old plant pots between us. It will be quite exciting to see where this project goes.

This weekend has been far too cold to do any gardening, but I did get out and look very seriously at what we've got in our grey street, I have visions of flowers now dancing in my head, all up and down the road, nodding in the summer breezes . . .

Your comments are much appreciated. I am going to do as I've done before, type up a little note for all the front doors on the street, so that all of our neighbours know what we've done and what we plan to do.  I'll tell them about this new dedicated blog, although in our area only about half of us have easy access it the Internet, or know how to find stuff on it.
Post-blog writing note - all those notes have been posted through everyone's individual letter-box by end of day today ! Well done me  . . .

I'm up next to Pizzadelique if you want to drop me a note, or alternatively leave a comment on this blog, or e-mail me. When we get more organised perhaps other residents will volunteer their services as blog-writer too.

If you know of other street greening projects please let us know. It's always good to find out how other groups are overcoming the same difficulties as we'll find as we get started.

We'll post as we have more developments. Have a good week.

OUR NEXT STREET GREENING MEETING IS ON SATURDAY 19 MARCH, 11:00 am AT PIZZADELIQUE, IN OUR ROAD. 

IT'S A FOOTBALL DAY FOR ARSENAL (an extra 60,000 fans show up on match days, although they don't all go to Pizzadelique before the match) , BUT THANK GOODNESS IT'S AN AWAY MATCH AT EVERTON ON THAT DAY. 

SEE YOU THERE . . . .

Regards from Jeremy, Flis, Kathleen and myself, Franc.

What Chatterton Road looks like now . . .

There's no getting around it. our road looks very grey. There's lots of concrete pavement and there's uneven tarmac that's not been re-done for twenty years. We tend to use the front garden for the dustbins, perhaps a hedge around, very occasionally a few bushes and very very occasionally flowers in pots, or vegetables or a rose-bush.

We COULD liven the place up with rampant wildflowers, nasturtiums in high summer, spring bulbs like daffodils and crocuses now, or geraniums and lavender in April or so.

I'm sure we'll get on to that in a few weeks, once we overcome the immediate drawbacks.

This is what Chatterton Road looks like today; our pavements are the old four feet wide, and there's brick edges next to the kerb that is another two feet wide.

The brick edging is where the trees and lampposts and street signs are placed, so we've only got about 1.2 metres max. to walk along. That's just enough width to push a pram or a wheel chair, or for two people to pass. If the hedge sticks over, that makes it uncomfortable to get by, especially with the high kerbs and all the parked cars usually end-to-end in our road.

 Just like a hundred or a thousand other streets near here, I imagine . . .

We have about seventy tiny front gardens and about thirty-one trees of varying ages. It is a typical small urban road.

Top of Chatterton Road looking west, pay parking for ten cars. The rest of the road is permit parking for residents.

in Chatterton Mews looking North to our road

Visitors' pay parking near Blackstock Road end. Cars come and go here all day long, often staying for a half-hour or less.

unadopted private mews, very limited greenery in sight but five front doors here down the mews

A very nice front garden even in winter, and it has netting to keep plants safe

Hedge is creeping towards the lamp-post

One of our mature trees, hard concrete around  tree base. Some of the paving slabs are raised and uneven.

One of our brand-new trees, soil surround to base with watering and fertiliser tube installed

Lovely hedges at Plimsoll Road end looking East, but no plants and just one mature tree

Blackstock Triangle is where this all started . . .

Naomi and Nicole and Nicolette run a blog telling us all about the greening that's been going on in roads near our Tube station, Finsbury Park.

https://outofmyshed.co.uk/btg/

Dynamic gardening !

Two or three streets up near Seven Sisters Road clubbed together and got on with making their roads into a beautiful green and cared-for neighbourhood. The hedges have turned into parades of clipped elephants, people share gro-bags in their tiny front gardens, the street trees have little wildflower gardens around their bases, and there's little library boxes on garden walls, full of ever-changing books for anyone to take away and read.

Lots of the residents have ideas and they have tried over the past few years to work as a group, so that everyone has a chance to get together with others to make entire roads look good, not just their own individual small front garden.

Looks beautiful, good exercise, improves the entire street, no-one needs to be left out, can be done on a shoestring. What's not to like ?

GREYSCAPE to GREENING in a city road

I'm new to these terms, GREYSCAPE, and GREENING.

Looking online at  https://www.rhs.org.uk/communities/campaigns/green-streets-better-lives

Greening is plants everywhere

It seems GREYSCAPE is the usual non-planted bits of the street, whether that's the pavement, or the path, or a driveway or a yard. GREENING is when we and you place greenery and plants and flowers in that grey landscape.

The obvious first step is to find out whose space it is, and then find out whether they'd mind if a few plants were put there. If it's a path or driveway you also need to make sure there's enough room for cars and people to pass, and that nothing's going to fall over or injure anyone, or damage their car.

There's also the basic problems of
Who will buy the flowers and plants,
Who will get the planters and soil, and
Who's tools can we use, and so on.

I think the biggest stumbling block to a successful gardening project really is

Who will look after the plants,
Who will keep the weeds down,
Who will trim the plants,
Who will harvest the seeds at the end of the summer, and BIGGEST problem,
Who will water the little darlings twice a week ?

We also have the problem of what we, as people who don't all know each other very well, but who all love on the same small road, can do to co-operate to design ideas for a changed and greener street landscape, and then find the resources to start it.

This is all terrifically exciting. More in the next post.

WELCOME - Who we are and where we are in London

We are a very small road in north London, not far from two Underground stations, near a bunch of bus routes, and very close indeed to the largest employer in Islington, Arsenal Emirates stadium.

At the last census in 2011 we had about 400 residents in about 75 dwellings, so we're a typical small road. There's two businesses, a restaurant Pizzadelique     http://pizzadelique.wix.com/delique         , and a car stereo and car alarm shop Finsbury Car Audio    https://www.finsburycaraudio.co.uk

The main road at the end of ours, Blackstock Road, has all the pleasures of modern life, mini-supermarkets, off-licences, DIY shop, lots of take-away food shops, and very good bus services to everywhere 24-7.

Chatterton Road is the GREEN line

For the interactive GoogleMap go to https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5607356,-0.1029356,17

This is our age ranges

We don't seem to stay for too long before we move on; this may be changing, as it costs so much to move to a new place in London. If you want to find out more about us here, go to the link I found at  https://www.streetcheck.co.uk/postcode/n42dz

This blog is really intended to keep everyone in touch with a new project we're going to start on our road. That's turning the GREYSCAPE into GREENING.

And I'll cover that in the next post.