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New ‘Coronation Gardens for Food and Nature’ launches today

Celebration of The King’s vision for treasuring nature and living sustainably

A new initiative is launched today which pays tribute to His Majesty, King Charles III’s long-standing commitment to the natural world and the environment – Coronation Gardens for Food and Nature.

Organised by The Wildlife Trusts in partnership with Incredible Edible, Garden Organic and the NFWI (National Federation of Women’s Institutes), the scheme will encourage people and communities across the United Kingdom to live sustainably and help wildlife recover by growing food and creating space for nature in gardens, on balconies and in shared greenspaces.

Coronation Gardens for Food and Nature is a three-year programme, which hopes to enthuse millions of people to grow their own food in wildlife-friendly gardens by providing advice and an opportunity to pledge their garden on a map. Its legacy is expected to last far into the future. The initiative will be kick-started by a grant of £247,834 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund.

In pledging to take part in Coronation Gardens for Food and Nature, people would be encouraged to:

  • Grow healthy food to eat – this could range from herbs and salads, through to vegetables and fruit trees depending on the space you have
  • Plant pollinator-friendly blooms – butterflies, moths, bees and hoverflies all need sources of nectar and pollen to thrive. As they travel from flower to flower, they also pollinate them, enabling plants to set seed or bear fruit
  • Create a water feature, which could be as simple as a submerged dish or as involved as digging a pond, lining it and oxygenating it using native plants such as hornwort
  • Leave a patch of long grass or pile of logs to create shelter for wildlife and natural predators such as hedgehogs and frogs
  • Go chemical and peat-free – avoid using pesticides, weedkillers and peat!

The initiative will evolve as the partnership grows. Initial ideas, inspiration and help for communities and individuals to get started – plus the pledge that people can make by registering their garden on a map – are at www.mycoronationgarden.org.

Gardens can play a big role in giving nature a boost while also enabling people to enjoy seeing wildlife and grow their own food. Coronation Gardens for Food and Nature aims to encourage people to use existing gardens, rooftops and shared greenspace, as well as to create new ones.

Robin on a watering can

Jon Hawkins-Surrey Hills Photography

Melissa Green, Chief Executive, NFWI (National Federation of Women’s Institutes) says:

“We are really excited to be working on this fantastic new initiative to celebrate HM the King’s longstanding commitment to sustainability and the environment. The WI has over a hundred years of proud history of protecting the natural environment, playing an active role in our communities, and promoting sustainability. We are honoured to be part of an initiative which continues the legacy of generations of members to safeguard the natural world and responds to the environmental challenges that face our generation and those ahead of us.”

Pamela Warhurst CBE, Chair of Incredible Edible, says:

“Growing fresh food to share in our neighbourhoods is the perfect way to reconnect with nature. Incredible Edible’s experience demonstrates we have places close to our homes that can be transformed into edible, nature-friendly spaces that reconnect people to each other, to healthier futures and to our environment. Through the power of small actions, in these Coronation Gardens and community beds, each of us can be a part of building a more sustainable future by simply coming together to grow food.” 

Fiona Taylor, CEO Garden Organic, says:

“Garden Organic is delighted to be a founding partner of the Coronation Gardens project. We firmly believe that if everybody took even the smallest of steps to make their growing space – be that a garden, allotment or pot on a window ledge – a sustainable haven, rich in wildlife and fresh homegrown food, the collective impact on the UK’s precious biodiversity would be significant.”

Eilish McGuinness, Chief Executive, The National Lottery Heritage Fund, says:

“Last year we gave £5million to support Nextdoor Nature, a flagship, UK-wide programme bringing communities together to help nature flourish where they live and work. We are pleased to help The Wildlife Trusts kick-start their next community initiative which expands on this concept, encouraging people to grow food in their own gardens and community spaces to help wildlife and nature thrive. Our initial funding will plant the roots for a project we expect to grow far beyond our support.”

Craig Bennett, Chief Executive of The Wildlife Trusts, says:

“During the past 50 years the King has frequently called for humanity to live in harmony with nature and has promoted sustainable food growing alongside planting for pollinators and pesticide-free gardening. Restoring nature and enhancing the health and wellbeing of communities has never been more important. We hope that people everywhere will enjoy helping wildlife whilst growing spuds and squash – and we’d like to invite groups across the UK to join our wonderful gardening coalition.”

Plentiful evidence highlights the huge health and wellbeing benefits to people from regular contact with nature – but at the same time many people have little access to natural greenspaces. For example, in more than 1 in 10 neighbourhoods 90%-100% of the population have no access to nature within 15 minutes’ walk – and the most deprived communities are more than twice as likely to live in areas with a small amount of natural space per person. As one in eight households has no garden, Coronation Gardens for Food and Nature will provide advice on how to connect with community schemes and use window boxes and balconies.

Further evidence shows that people are concerned about the environment and want to take action to help. Coronation Gardens for Food and Nature hopes to empower and inspire people and communities to share the joy of gardening across the British Isles.

Editors’ notes

For more information see our media briefing here and website www.mycoronationgarden.org.

 

Coronation Gardens for Food and Nature

The idea was developed by the Coronation Gardens Initiative, which consists of Tom Burke (Chair), Dame Polly Courtice DBE, LVO, Dr Tony Juniper CBE, Elizabeth Buchanan, Craig Bennett (the proposers), Thirzah McSherry (The Wildlife Trusts, programme delivery) and Geraint Richards (advisor). The Wildlife Trusts are the lead delivery partner.

 

Tom Burke, Chair of The Coronation Gardens Initiative, says:

“This Initiative arose from our shared belief in the depth of the passion for nature within the public in Britain – a passion we know to be shared by His Majesty, King Charles. We saw the Coronation as an opportunity for people to give tangible expression to that passion by creating a lasting legacy in their gardens. We were delighted by the offer from the Wildlife Trusts to make available their skills, experience and organisational strength to lead the delivery of the Initiative.”

 

The initiative is supported by Natural England. Tony Juniper, Chair of Natural England, says: 

 “By creating Nature-rich gardens and wilder local green spaces many of us can play a key role in reviving the fortunes of some of our much-loved wildlife, from hedgehogs to blackbirds, and from bees to frogs. Nurturing plants for food also brings us closer to the wellbeing benefits of Nature and connects us in healthy ways to what we eat, as well as giving us an appreciation of how precious food is. It is these themes that this initiative is all about.

 

“Having worked with the King on environmental matters for many years I know what a passionate advocate he is for restoring our depleted natural world. This new initiative is a fitting tribute to his work and Natural England is very proud to support it.”

 

Chris Baines, wildlife gardening champion and Vice-President of The Wildlife Trusts, says:

“Over the decades since I made the very first wildlife garden at Chelsea Flower Show, back in 1985, it has been so inspiring to see more and more people helping nature on the doorstep. As a horticulturist I have always believed that conservation, food growing and a love of the outdoors should go hand in hand, and now the Coronation Gardens raise that idea to a whole new level. This is such a very enjoyable way for each of us to make a lasting difference.”

 

Evidence:

 

Coronation Meadows

Coronation Gardens for Food and Nature is a natural successor to the Coronation Meadows project which began 10 years ago. See: New audit reveals success of The King’s vision for wildflower meadows | The Wildlife Trusts

 

The Wildlife Trusts

The Wildlife Trusts are making the world wilder and helping to ensure that nature is part of everyone’s lives. We are a grassroots movement of 46 charities with more than 900,000 members and 38,000 volunteers. No matter where you are in Britain, there is a Wildlife Trust inspiring people and saving, protecting and standing up for the natural world. With the support of our members, we care for and restore special places for nature on land and run marine conservation projects and collect vital data on the state of our seas. Every Wildlife Trust works within its local community to inspire people to create a wilder future – from advising thousands of landowners on how to manage their land to benefit wildlife, to connecting hundreds of thousands of school children with nature every year. www.wildlifetrusts.org

 

Incredible Edible

Incredible Edible’s mission is to create kind, confident and connected communities, with raised awareness of the ways we can live more sustainably, through the power of food. There are around 150 grass roots, volunteer-led groups in the UK originating from the original group in Todmorden.

Incredible Edible is a movement of ordinary people who do extraordinary things. Incredible Edible has always been a bottom-up movement for grass roots change and through the last decade, the Incredible Edible network has been a loosely federated group of friends committed not by structure and constitution but by hearts and passion to create a different future and a kinder present. There are no rules, just a set of principles – a story of three plates and an inclusive welcome that reminds us every day that if you eat, you’re in.

 

NFWI (National Federation of Women’s Institutes)

  • The WI is the largest voluntary women’s organisation in the UK with approximately 180,000 members in over 5,500 WIs across England, Wales, and the Islands.
  • The organisation plays a unique role in enabling women to develop new skills, giving them opportunities to campaign on issues that matter to them and their communities, and provides wide-ranging activities for members to get involved in.
  • Over the past one hundred years WI members have campaigned on a whole host of environmental concerns, from pollution of the seas from oil thrown overboard from ships (1927) to a resolution calling for action to improve sewers to prevent pollution of watercourses (1958). The WI’s groundbreaking End Plastic Soup campaign, launched in 2017, brought the issue of plastic pollution from synthetic clothing to a mainstream audience for the first time.
  • For further information please visit www.theWI.org.uk. Visit the WI’s website at www.thewi.org.uk Follow us on social media facebook.com/thewi or @womensinstitute on Instagram and Twitter

 

Garden Organic

  • Garden Organic promotes organic growing and composting, citizen science and research, and seed conservation through our Heritage Seed Library. Our aim is to help people grow 'the organic way', using natural methods to promote healthy, biodiverse, sustainable gardens.
  • Founded in the 1950s as the Henry Doubleday Research Association, we have been leading the way in researching and demonstrating best practice organic growing for more than 65 years and bring together a movement of thousands of growers keen to have a positive impact on the green space they nurture.
  • Garden Organic is the home of the Heritage Seed Library – the National Collection of vegetable varieties. Through seed conservation and sharing, we protect more than 800 heritage, heirloom and landrace vegetable varieties that would otherwise have been lost forever. The library is a vital resource to connect people with seed, keep our food heritage alive and preserve biodiversity.
  • For more information visit gardenorganic.org.uk 

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