A rooftop garden by Homerton High Street run by local charity Core Arts has won a top award for its contribution to greening the city and promoting community cooperation.
Core Landscapes, an offshoot of non-profit organisation Core Arts, aims to improve mental health through creative and community based gardening, and was awarded the London in Bloom 2020 Gold Award last month.
Since the organisation began in 2009, it has transformed unused spaces in deprived urban areas into community gardens.
Grown entirely in containers, the site by St Barnabas Church has been able to move location four times across Hackney and Tower Hamlets. The gardens are now permanently based in Homerton.
Nemone Mercer, the manager of the site, said: “It’s really great to win awards. It’s a nice sign of appreciation and helps to promote our work more widely.”
Homerton’s rooftop garden has been open for two years and offers workshops in gardening, design, and wellbeing.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, Core Arts has moved their workshops online to stay connected with their members.
Ms Mercer said: “The challenge is not working face-to-face. We now have up to 40 classes on video sharing site Vimeo and have begun resuming small group workshops.”
“COVID-19 has certainly had an impact on people’s mental health and there has definitely been a resurgence of interest in the last few months.”
“As a team, we expect the interest to continue growing.”
