The charity supported by Maindee Unlimited: Greening Maindee Gateway Garden at RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2025 explains their mission and aims
Maindee and Greening Maindee
Maindee is a highly populated inner-city environment that lacks quality accessible green space.
Greening Maindee is the volunteer gardening team of
Maindee Unlimited and their aim is to create productive healthy spaces, on neglected pockets of land for the benefit of local residents whilst enhancing biodiversity in the process.
This garden is co-created by Ruth Essex, the placemaker and project lead and John Stone, landscaper and lead for Greening Maindee. The project is funded by the Welsh Government.
See Maindee Unlimited: Greening Maindee Gateway Garden
Greening Maindee says: “During lockdown, many people without access to a garden suffered considerably owing to the lack of quality green and recreational outdoor space vital for their physical and mental health. This chronic situation has brought into sharp focus just how important urban greening is for the overall wellbeing of the wider community and how we must redouble our efforts to create healthy, safe, nature-rich spaces for local people.
“The proposed Gateway Garden will be established in the very heart of Maindee – inviting people to come together in a safe and nature-filled environment. The aspiration is for the garden to become a wonderful focal point for Maindee; a place where residents can take ownership going forward and appreciate its social and recreational value long into the future. This garden forms part of a wider strategic plan developed by the charity to improve the quality of the local district centre environment for the wellbeing of our community and traders drawing from best practice in urban and landscape design.
“The aim is to make radical improvements to the use of local public space for walking, cycling and recreation and help support the local daytime and night-time economies by making the areas safer and more attractive. The greening of a high-density urban neighbourhood is particularly important with high levels of pollution. The garden responds to this by using pollution-filtering trees and plants, and links in with a strategic drive to reduce effects of air pollution through planting schemes already in place, such as the installation of a ְ‘clean air’ garden in the front of the library with SuDS (sustainable drainage system) planters linking to the down-pipes, and a range of other green infrastructure.”
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