The Gateway to Summer
June is the month when it all kicks off in many gardens. We were all busy little bees in the community garden too. Read on to see what we got up to.
June June is here, the month of roses, month of brides and month of bees, Weaving garlands for our lassies, whispering love songs in the trees, Painting scenes of gorgeous splendor, canvases no man could brush, Changing scenes from early morning till the sunset's crimson flush. June is here, the month of blossoms, month of roses white and red, Wet with dew and perfume-laden, nodding wheresoe'er we tread; Come the bees to gather honey, all the lazy afternoon; Flowers and lassies, men and meadows, love alike the month of June. Month of love and month of sunshine, month of happiness and song, Month that cheers the sad wayfarer as he plods the road along; Spreading out a velvet carpet, green and yellow, for his feet, And affording for his rest hours many a cool and sweet retreat. - Edgar A. Guest, 1917
Gardening For Wellbeing
Our Gardening for Wellbeing sessions at Leyton Boundary Garden began on 6th June and are initially running every Friday morning from 10am to 1pm for six weeks. The sessions offer a relaxed and supportive space to learn new gardening skills while growing vegetables, herbs, and flowers. They’re designed to support mental and physical wellbeing and help reduce feelings of isolation by bringing people together in a welcoming green space.
We’ve long understood the connection that our health has with being outside and working with the earth, and it’s been wonderful to see participants connect, unwind, and enjoy the simple pleasure of being in the garden.
We’re looking forward to the weeks ahead. Thank you Alex (our delightful Head Gardener) for running these much loved and needed sessions. If you would like to join the sessions, please email Alex directly.
Scorching
Oh, it was a hot one, wasn’t it folks? Let me tell you, working in a polytunnel on the hottest days of the year was a struggle. Still the show had to go on; there was watering to do, sowing and potting-on, and harvests to gather!
The onions were ready to dig up, and there were so many of them! Red and white varieties to enjoy, what a haul. A great activity for our little gardeners to do, pulling up the onions and transporting them to the table to be shared was great fun.
The last of the broad beans were cut down and shelled, and everything in the ground was tended to gently. It was so dry that everything needed regular watering (including the volunteers).
We urged everyone to stay cool and hydrated — sun hats and sunscreen aplenty. Our Tea Shed provided shade and refreshments.
Thoughts on installing a splash pad for next year..?
Welcome, Sisters!
On 1st June, Leyton Boundary Garden hosted the inaugural session of Hafsah Hafeji’s Sisters’ Gardening Club. Hafsah, already a much-loved figure in local community garden spaces and Spitalfields City Farm, hosted two special gardening clubs this month dedicated to local Muslim women.
The sessions were a great success, bringing together women of all ages and experience to share gardening skills, stories, and a strong sense of community. Participants praised the warm and inclusive atmosphere, and many expressed a desire for more regular gatherings. Due to the overwhelmingly positive response, Hafsah plans to continue the gardening club in the coming months, offering a consistent and welcoming space for learning, connection, and growth.
We're thrilled to welcome this wonderful new initiative to the garden and wish the Sisters Gardening Club continued joy and fulfilment as they grow and thrive in this shared space.
30 Days Wild 2025
We partnered with Caroline at The Castle Play Space to share nature-focussed ideas for young gardeners and wildlife enthusiasts during June.
30 Days Wild is an annual challenge from The Wildlife Trusts, encouraging people to connect with nature by doing one wild thing every day in June. It aims to boost well-being, promote nature connectedness, and inspire pro-nature behaviors. The challenge is free and offers resources and inspiration for participants.
Take a look at Caroline’s and the Leyton Boundary Garden Instagram grids to revisit all the amazing ideas and inspiration they’ve shared!
Wildlife Pond Update!
You may remember (how could we even forget?) that last month we built a whole wildlife pond at the garden as part of our long-term biodiversity plan. Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s settling-in brilliantly, and already the wildlife is making itself quite at home in it!
First, some upgrades: Jenny installed two solar-powered oxygenating pumps connected to small air stones to get the water moving a little and prevent absolute stagnation. The community garden gets prolonged sunlight during the day, so this was a great way to keep our new pond healthy, especially during the heat we experienced early in the month. She also fixed the pond ramp to the sides, and tethered down the large branch spanning the pond so that it wouldn’t keep dropping into the water.
Next, we added some aquatic plants including some that were so kindly donated to us. Water mint, that will happily spread just like its land-growing counterpart around the margins. And figwort which is an insect magnet. Jenny also purchased some additional oxygenating plants: hornwort bunches, water soldiers, and frog bit. A Marsh Marigold was added, a gorgeous Purple Loosestrife, and three beautiful pond lilies too. Jenny rigged up a hanging basket-style lowering system to ensure the lilies ended up where they would be most happy in the deep end (sound on):
There was a sad moment a few days later when we discovered that the Purple Loosestrife had plummeted to the bottom of the pond — most likely from being prodded at from the edges by an inquisitive fox. It served as a good reminder to tether things down better in future.
We knew that we’d probably start seeing the tiniest things first: mosquito larvae, maybe some rat-tailed maggots (sounds delightful, I know, but these are the larval form of our much needed hoverfly pollinator buddies). The bottom of the food chain always comes first in a healthy ecosystem. But what we hadn’t imagined would happen so fast was the appearance of the ladybirds, parasitic wasps, honeybees, midges, craneflies and moths!
“If you build it, they will come” never rang so true.
Bye-nana Tree
Alas, the decision had to be made. Our banana tree, donated a few years ago by the lovely Silma, had outgrown its position in the polytunnel for some time. We hadn’t moved it yet because, well, we were a bit nervous about whether it would survive 1) the removal process, and 2) its new designated position.
But the branches were bending on the polytunnel roof, it was stunted and sad. We never got any fruit from it. So on 14th June, at a point in the year when banana trees are happier being moved, we decided that enough was enough (with Silma’s blessing!).
We tried to remove the whole tree at first, but quickly realised that wasn’t going to happen. A somewhat fortuitous realisation, turns out, as the banana tree had 5 new shoots at the base. Planting these outside in a sunny sheltered position would give them their best opportunity to root down and acclimate before the winter. So we used that classic gardeners’ tool — a wood saw — to reduce the main tree chunk by chunk, until we could use brute force to remove the rootball.
We made another fun discovery — banana tree stems not only look like cucumber, but they smell like them too! An unmistakeable banana-and-cucumber smoothie scent filled the polytunnel as we worked.
Once outside, we could isolate the baby banana stems growing at the base and remove them ready for planting elsewhere.
We planted the new banana trees in a sunny bed across from the polytunnel. We considered how we might be able to give them the best fighting change of establishing, wary of how hot the weather had become. Jenny suggested using olla pots to help distribute water to the shoots. We didn’t have any olla pots specifically at the community garden, but we did have some old terracotta pots that could be plugged at the bottom so we did just that. The pots were buried closely to the banana shoots, filled with water and the saucers were used as lids to help slow evaporation.
We’ll keep you posted on how the little bananas settle in!
Make It Do It art workshop
On a hot and sunny 21st June, the illustrious Tara from Make it Do It hosted a fabulous art workshop at the community garden. The young participants and their adults joined in creating some stunningly decorated terracotta pots painted in the style of Van Gogh! We supplied sunflowers to be planted into the pots once the paint was dry, and everyone took their magnificent creations home to enjoy.
We absolutely loved everything about this event, and LBG was the perfect location for such green (and red, blue, orange, pink, yellow…)-fingered creativity. Absolutely something we would love to see at the garden again. If you’d like to collaborate with us for your creative event, get in touch!
Vicarage Road Jumble Trail
On 22nd June (yes, a busy weekend!), we held a vibrant plant sale as part of the Vicarage Road Jumble Trail. It was a joy to welcome both familiar faces and new visitors—some who didn’t even know the garden existed! The event was a fantastic way to share our love of growing with the local community while raising essential funds for the garden.
We’re excited to host more plant sales throughout the year and continue growing together
