“Around 15 community gardening volunteers from East Walworth were joined by four members of the Lendlease team on 17th October to tidy up the Community Orchard in Mason Street and get it ready for the future planting of additional fruit trees.
As part of its annual Community Day initiative, Lendlease kindly paid for all materials including bulk bags of compost, soil and bark mulch, with Gardenscape donating two bags of mulch.
The joint gardening team set to work to weed the mixed native hedge around the edge of the orchard, before placing mulch, and then excavating two tree pits in very stony ground! The pits were backfilled with planting compost and soil, ready for planting in January when the additional bare root fruit trees arrive.
Peter Wright was a greatly loved and well-respected local resident who campaigned tirelessly for a greener Walworth, where people were at the centre of our streets and parks. He was a very practical man who wasn’t afraid of getting his hands dirty and was also an expert at garnering local support and pulling the community together to clear up and rejuvenate parks, wildlife areas and other green spaces in his neighbourhood.
However, he tragically passed away a few months ago and so this event was a very fitting day and a chance for people to say thank you to him for all of his great work.
We are also happy to announce that the Community Orchard will now be called "Pete’s Community Orchard". We await the arrival of the new sign. Peter will be missed enormously, but all that he achieved lives on, from East Walworth Green Link walking route to trees and community planting projects all over Walworth.” - Ewan Oliver, Public Realm Consultant