Last week I was in Greenwich Park, in what was the Old Rose Garden for several decades, and now transformed into a fantastic herbaceous garden, a riot of colour, shapes and forms, tall grasses swaying and intermingling flowering shrubs (find out more about this transformation). I had gone there to see one specific Salvia – and what a show they were putting on!
CABAHS members were delighted to welcome Clare Lanes, Project Manager of the ambitious Greenwich Park Revealed project, to talk to us about ‘The Greenwich Park Rose Garden: Renovation and Redesign 2023-2025‘.
Tackling this has been a thorny issue – no pun intended – amongst park users as the Rose Garden was a much-loved feature. Somewhat surprisingly the Rose Garden, as it was when Head Gardener Tom Brown began work on the replanting in 2021, was not one of the heritage areas that fell under the Greenwich Park Revealed project. The garden had first been laid out only in the 1960s with some updates taking place in the 1990s.
Continue reading September 2025 Talk: Clare Lanes on the Greenwich Park Rose GardenTom Stanier, the Horticultural Team Lead at Greenwich Park, gave a talk about his life as a gardener at the Park and a behind-the-scenes look at working there in these challenging times. He described how he came into gardening, his training and work at the Park and some of the Park infrastructure, policies and projects. It was great to hear from someone with hands-on experience there.
He said he felt a connection with Charlton House as he had been married there in 2018. His interest in gardening really took off in 2017 when he moved into a flat in Lewisham with his partner and began to grow plants on his balcony and indoors. He had a radical rethink of his life in 2018. Having a child particularly refocused his life on his choice of a future career. Having been in retail for ten years, he decided he wanted to work out of doors and do something flexible and tangible. He successfully applied for the 2 year Royal Parks Apprenticeship Scheme which is part practical and part college-based course and chose to work at Greenwich Park as he thought it was more interesting. He completed an RHS Certificate and has since taken over leadership of the Horticultural Team at the Park, working closely with the head gardener.
Continue reading February 2024 Talk about Working in Greenwich ParkI love Greenwich Park Flower garden and am full of admiration for how their gardeners have gradually adapted, from growing all their plants on site to whatever combination of outsourcing they use nowadays. It usually looks wonderful.
I understand it is a public garden and has to cover those who like the bedding plant tradition, those who expect a wow factor and those who want a bit of modern style.
But the current drought has really highlighted the bedding plant issue!
It is eye-catching for all the wrong reasons, little oases of green with the rest of the park straw-dry.
Even traditionalists must wonder what on earth the point is of pouring water on these beds of Impatiens. There are other beds containing tree ferns and perennials and it absolutely makes sense to water expensive plants that will come back and cope in a (hopefully) more normal future year.
This is a personal viewpoint, not necessarily representative of the CABAHS membership, it would be interesting to hear members views..? Perhaps it’s a debate we can have at the Gardeners Question Time meeting on August 15th!
Kathy A
Graham Dear was welcomed to our meeting. He said he was pleased to talk to some fellow gardeners, though he hadn’t gardened himself for many years, as he had moved from being Manager of Greenwich Park to heading up the Greenwich Park Revealed Project (GPRP). This is a 4-year project aimed at revealing, restoring, protecting and sharing the park’s unique heritage now and for future generations.
Graham said the pandemic had had a profound impact on Greenwich Park and the way it is managed. From March 2020 all recreational activities and events in all the Royal Parks ground to a halt, which resulted in an overall revenue loss of £20million, some 50 percent of annual spend. In Greenwich, the Pavilion Café, boating lake, tennis courts and even the rose garden had to be closed as its gates needed pushing and touching. There was no income from bandstand concerts, filming or car park fees or catering. The park was also unable to get insurance to cover events in 2021.
It had a particularly devastating impact on the GPRP which originally had had a £10m budget allocated to it. £4.5m was funded by the Heritage Fund which had already begun to be implemented. Graham said he was faced with the challenge of making economies due to the loss of park revenue. He aimed to save £2m, so the GPRP budget has been cut to £8m. The cuts included the Nursery Yard reorganisation and the Sustainable Learning Centre.
Not all was bad though. Closing the through road and avenues was beneficial to pedestrians. Although the park no longer had tourists, there was a massive increase in local visitors to the park – who often arrived by bike or on foot – and used it for exercise and recreation.
Rubbish was an issue but the staff coped well with the challenge and more bins are now a feature of the park!
Visitors were naturally more spaced out because of social distancing needs. An informal poll showed they were much younger as well. Ethnic diversity also increased by 5 percent.
Graham then went on to discuss the revised plans they had for the park and showed a range of slides to illustrate the programme. He said the GPRP had now begun again.
Finally, he discussed the park’s engagement with the wider community, including training schemes that were being introduced such as three year apprentices and cultural events such as the Tramshed and dance. Graham then answered members questions, and was thanked for such an interesting talk.
Angela
Graham Dear is Manager for Greenwich Park. His management has overseen Greenwich Park Revealed, ‘an exciting multi million pound project to conserve and to enhance Greenwich Park’s historic and natural heritage, putting the community at its very heart’.
Charlton and Blackheath Amateur Horticultural Society 