Over 100 residents took on the challenge, which included the opportunity to contribute to research into the environmental and social benefits of balcony greening
The winning entries to the National Trust’s first ever Sky Gardening Challenge were announced on Thursday 25 July at a private garden party hosted at Castlefield Viaduct.
The pilot competition was open to residents of five neighbourhoods across Greater Manchester: First Choice Homes Oldham Eldon Street and Barker Street (Oldham); Angel Gardens (Manchester); Bentley House Estate (Hulme), and Middlewood Locks and New Maker Yards (Salford). Over 100 residents signed up to take part in the Challenge this summer, which aimed to get people greening up their balconies and window boxes in the hope of improving people’s connection to nature.
The challenge was themed around five categories:
- C elebrate cultural heritage;
- In the shade;
- Reduce, Reuse, Recycle;
- Wild about Wildlife;
- Urban Farming.
People who signed up in April and May received freebies including seeds, peat-free compost, access to free workshops and socials and invaluable advice from the judges and National Trust gardeners along the way. Contestants shared their gardening journey with the National Trust in June, before a special panel of judges visited the homes of shortlisted entrants to review their progress, and select the four winners, and four runners up.
Residents were also offered the opportunity to take part in research carried out by the Department of Geography at The University of Manchester, which aims to understand the impact of balcony greening on people’s health and wellbeing, and on nature. As well as surveying contestants before and after greening their balconies, the University offered some residents the chance to install air quality and temperature sensors on their balconies, to monitor the environmental impact of balcony greening.
Early findings suggest that greening your balcony might not just be great for the planet, but for your health and wellbeing too. The response from people in the Challenge to this research has been tremendous, and we look forward to sharing the final results of the research soon.
There were four top-prize winners:
- Jo Magee in the ’Celebrate Cultural Heritage’ category
- Dean Jackson in the ’In the Shade’ category
- Lauren Sheasby in the ’Urban Farming’ category and
- Jack Selman in the ’Wild about Wildlife’ category.
Winners each received £200 of gardening goodies as donated by Blue Diamond Garden Centres and CJ Wildlife.
Chloe Parker, customer of First Choice Homes Oldham, said: "Me and my 5 year old son Clayne joined the challenge as he loves nature and wanted to get involved, we’ve planted a number of seeds over 5/6 planters which are on our balcony wall. We’re both very new to this so there has been a lot of trial and error and we’ve realised nasturtiums and cornflower grows best in our space."
Not only has this pilot encouraged people to green up their balconies, there has been evidence that it has helped to improve mental health too. One entrant commented: "The workshops and socials helped me get started and motivated me to do it as I have had lots of health problems and I had lost the will to do it. I felt very tired at first but now I can spend an hour or so everyday day and I love sitting in my garden listening the birds or even just the wind blowing through the trees." Another said; "It’s like a pocket of peace in a busy town centre, a little piece of the countryside."
The Sky Gardening Challenge was judged by gardening experts including Cloud Gardener, whose work featured in the RHS Urban Show; Victoria Holden, founder of Northern Lily, a social enterprise based in Oldham that promotes wildlife friendly gardening; Liz Dalby-Webb, Head Gardener at social enterprise Plant MCR; Kath Gavin, Sustainability Coordinator at Hulme Community Garden Centre; and Robyn Booth, National Trust gardener and author of balcony gardening book GROW.
The experiences and stories from participants in the Challenge is really powerful - access to nature is so important. This pilot scheme starts to show the potential for people and nature of greening small spaces such as urban balconies and window boxes.
