Ellie is a volunteer with the Hidden Gardens Trust, which won the Alistair Malloy Award for Inclusive Volunteering at the Inspiring City Awards in September 2019
LAST summer, I was looking for a way to get into a garden. Living in a tenement with only a shared backcourt, I felt a yearning to be not just in nature but to find a space where I could get into the soil and plants.
The Hidden Gardens advertises its volunteer positions around the southside, and sometimes further afield at places like Volunteer Glasgow and the Scottish Refugee Council. I happened to see their poster outside Lidl in Govanhill, listing the upcoming weekend sessions. I sent an email and was promptly booked in for the next slot.
I found the Saturday session fun, well-run and informative and so immediately enquired about the Green Thumbs role during the week. I’ve been turning up regularly for gardening sessions ever since.
This has been the first time since school I’ve done any real volunteering. Having suffered a period of ill-health, and with work taking a back seat, I was eager to find places where I could get involved on a part-time basis, meet new people, learn some skills and have something valuable and interesting to put on my CV. In the end though, gardening is a wonderful kind of therapy in itself.
I have found that there is a remarkable amount to get out of volunteering generally, and gardening at the Hidden Gardens in particular. Since much of the gardening and care of the space is undertaken by volunteers, the head gardener and her assistants teach us what we need to know to be able to complete tasks. As someone who has minimal gardening knowledge, this has been a lovely bonus!
Often during the summer months, there is delicious produce to take home, and I feel great pride that some of my time helped grow the potatoes, tomatoes or kale. Also, there’s always something extra to be involved in, either helping out at one of the gardens’ many events, showcasing your particular skillset, or being invited on a special volunteer trip to the Borders as a thank you for all our hard work.
I think one of the greatest benefits of Hidden Gardens’ volunteer programme is how it manages to bring different parts of the community together.
I love learning words from my fellow gardeners – be it how to say “tree” in a native Sudanese language or a Gaelic turn-of-phrase that has crept into English.
For the wider community, we garden to keep a beautiful space open and accessible to anyone who, like me, craves to be in a garden.
To find out more see www.thehiddengardens.org.uk/volunteering
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