A new lease of life for our Sustainable Garden
The Sustainable Garden is about to undergo an exciting relaunch, creating a beautiful edible and wildlife friendly garden at the heart of campus.
Located next to the Roger Stevens building, the Sustainable Garden was originally installed in 2015. The design was based on the University’s ‘water@Leeds’ gold award-winning RHS flower show entry and included a forest garden, fruit hedgerows, wildflower areas and allotment-style planting areas. Seating areas, new raised beds, a willow tunnel and new wildflower lawns have been added over recent years.
A small team have been working to reimagine the garden for current times, taking into account challenges such as the climate crisis, the cost of living crisis and the wellbeing needs of our community.
Gardening, and particularly growing edible crops, has been shown to have a wide range of positive benefits. These include improving mental health and wellbeing, increased fruit and vegetable intake, promoting seasonal eating and increasing local biodiversity.
As the space develops it will offer additional opportunities for learning and information sharing, as well as being available to use as a Living Lab for research.
An incredible partnership
Partnering with Incredible Edible Meanwood, the garden relaunch will involve weekly gardening sessions for staff, students and the local community. These sessions will allow participants to get hands on in the garden to develop and maintain the space, learn about sustainable food growing and support health and wellbeing.
The Edible Gardener, Caroline Scott will be supporting the relaunch of the garden. She will already be a familiar face to some on campus as she led the original incarnation of the garden in partnership with LUU.
“I’m super excited to be starting a weekly gardening session in the Sustainable Garden, with a focus on wellbeing, connection to nature, food growing and foraging. Gardening together is a fantastic way to revitalise and clear your head, as well as learning skills and meeting new people.”
Regular gardening sessions open to all
Regular gardening sessions on campus are open to all and will focus on bringing the garden back into full use. We will be planting new herbs, vegetables, edible flowers and fruit as well as caring for the existing plants.
Participants will learn about sustainable food growing, and how to harvest and preserve tasty and nutritious food from the garden and across campus.
The relaunch begins with a ‘give-it-a-go’ session from 1-3pm on Wednesday 2 October, where participants will help kick start the reinvigoration of the garden and sow microgreens to grow at home. You can sign up through our events page
Weekly gardening sessions are running throughout the year and can also be found on our events page.
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
We use the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a framework to guide our activity. Our work in the Sustainable Garden is linked to the following SDGs:
- Goal 3: Good health and wellbeing
- Goal 11: Sustainable cities and communities
- Goal 15: Life on land
- Goal 17: Partnerships for the goals
Find out more about our impact on the SDGs.
