Gardening has gradually become a way for people to connect remotely and a virtual link for certain communities
Since the UK government announced the lockdown measure, the garden becomes a popular place for people to chill out and work out.
At the same time, it is encouraging more people to get close to nature in this challenging time. We interview three gardening communities and individuals to find out their stories.
Global Gardens Project
Global Gardens Project is to bring people together to learn about gardening, cooking and craft. As a result of Covid-19, they have had to stop all in-person public project activities at the garden.
This month, they have a new project “Stay Home, Eat Veg! ” It aims to continue supporting learning about gardening and cooking in an adapted format that is Covid-safe, fostering connections between people in a socially distant yet connected way.
Poppy Nicol, the coordinator of Global Gardens Project, shared with us how they responded to this pandemic.
Garden Guys and Gal
Garden Guys and Gal is a community based on social media, sharing gardening information in a fun and interactive way.
JayDee Gunnell, the County Extension Director said: “Social media is an easy way to disperse accurate and concise information to a very broad audience. Many people said that they were able to harvest fruit for the first time from their peach tree thanks to the videos we produce.”
image: Gardening Guys and Gal
Zack’s inspiring tomatoes
Zack, a 7-years-old Irish boy, has shared his videos about tomatoes to encourage people to enter into gardens with their kids.
His video received 17,000 views and 802 likes. Many people were inspired by him to start growing tomatoes and other plants.
Alongside the gardening community is trying to share expertise videos online to help people, individuals are enjoying their gardening time.
Richard Holst’s story
Richard Holst, 79 years old, who is from Cardiff, he said gardening is his hobby and he got great satisfaction from preparing the ground, sowing the seed.
He is also sharing his sufficient food to neighbours.
A Wuhan resident’s gardening life
Wuhan, as the ground zero of Coronavirus pandemic, has experienced the lockdown for several months. Ms Yao, a Wuhan resident, believes that they are very grateful to have their own garden at this difficult time.
Sara Tucker’s story
Sara Tucker is a residence of Cardiff who is keen to gardening. Since the lockdown, Sara and her family have to stay at home. Even though they love each other, they still need their own space to chill out. The time of doing garderning and planting vegetables for her is healing in this challenging time.
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Deborah Hale and Nat live next door to each other, they enjoy gardening and decided to run a marathon in their back gardens to raise money for Chestnut Tree House a few weeks ago.
Like most charities, Chestnut Tree House relies on donations and fundraising from events such as the marathon. These would help them to continue providing services for the most vulnerable in society.
With the pandemic, most of the sports and social events are cancelled, which makes their jobs even harder.
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