Community Fruit Harvesting

Fruit trees are an important part of the HGS garden design, and many of fruit trees donated by Henrietta Barnett are still alive with significant veteran tree biodiversity benefits. The aim of our community harvesting initiative is to collect surplus fruit – mainly apples and pears – from people’s gardens, allotments and public spaces – fruit that would otherwise go to waste – and get that fruit to food banks and other community causes. 

 So, if have some of your fruit to donate (we can even come and pick it for you) or if you want to help with picking (it’s so much fun!) or with transport and organisation, please contact harvesting@hgsra.org This scheme is linked with the Barnet Community Harvesters.

HGS, a London Hogwatch ‘Hotspot’

It turns out that the special garden and green spaces design of Hampstead Garden Suburb is particularly welcoming to hedgehogs, a delightful mammal species sadly vulnerable to extinction and rightly considered the gardener’s best friend as excellent natural garden pest controller and ecosystem stabiliser. 

An initiative of the Zoological Society of London, the London HogWatch aims to identify hedgehog populations and promote conservation strategies. 2018 and 2021 camera trap surveys have recorded hedgehog sightings in Golders Hill Park and the Heath Extension. The online survey by Hampstead Garden Suburb residents also revealed frequent hedgehog sightings, as did independent data from the Big Hedgehog Map. https://www.zsl.org/what-we-do/projects/london-hogwatch 

A visit with the Hampstead Garden Suburb Residents Association identified several possible reasons for this. Since the Suburb’s establishment in the 1920s, fencing between properties has been restricted to permeable hedges which allows for hedgehog movement between gardens. Blocks of housing have gardens backing onto central green spaces, and eleven allotments are sited in the Suburb. 

Engagement with Barnett SINCs was beyond the scope of the IN SINC projects, but there are several embedded in or near the Suburb and due to the hedgehog sightings in the area this would be an interesting area to focus more on. 

Britain’s Biggest Living Garden

2024 sees the launch of “Britain’s Biggest Living Garden”, an ambitious project seeking to establish Hampstead Garden Suburb as the most biodiverse area of urban Britain. “Britain’s Biggest Living Garden” will become a national flagship that showcases the impact communities can have on nurturing and supporting wildlife around them. It is commonly thought that to impact biodiversity you either need a huge estate to “re-wild” or that you must accept an unruly garden that is neither usable nor beautiful. These could not be further from the truth. In fact, domestic gardens can be an incredibly important hub of biodiversity and HGS gardens have huge potential. For more information please visit BritainsBiggestLivingGarden.org