Community garden wins award

A volunteer-led project that has transformed part of a graveyard into a thriving community hub, has won an award.

The Llansamlet Graveyard Community Garden, which is run by church and community volunteers, including Shine Cymru, a local group helping young adults with learning difficulties, has earned a Community Land Advisory Service (CLAS) award.

Project manager David Rooke said, "The community garden started six months ago with a development grant from Keep Wales Tidy, which provided a gardener for 18 days to help to set up the garden, with three raised beds, a greenhouse, a tool shed, fruit trees, seeds, benches and so forth, worth about £130,00 in total.

"On top of this we had a crowd-funder which raised many thousands of pounds, as well as £6,000 from the Diocese of Swansea and Brecon Mission Fund. We have used this money to buy a poly tunnel, three more raised beds , picnic tables and other items for the garden so we are well set up in our corner of the graveyard, which is about 300 square metres in size.

"There are around 30 Shine volunteers with 15 carers who come in different groups every week on a Monday and Friday to help in the garden. They love it and so far have been involved in digging, collecting leaves, sowing seeds, transferring seed plants to bigger pots, filling the bird feeders and compost bins. They have all been given a hoody and t-shirt with their name on it and a baseball hat which have been paid for through funding. The logo on them was designed by one of the young adults at Shine following a little competition to design a logo."

Fruit and vegetables grown in the garden will be given to the local foodbank for which the church at Llansamlet is a collection point every second Thursday, or given to some of the young adults to take home .

The garden project will extend to more of the graveyard over the coming years with more benches, planters, bird feeders, bat boxes, hedgehog boxes and insect hotels .

"We will also try to reduce the grass cutting areas, as this is a major cost for the church, and convert them to wild meadow plant areas, making them more attractive for the bees and butterflies and perhaps we will have beehives in the future," David said.

The CLAS Awards started in 2019 and are funded by the Welsh Government. The award is run by Social Farms & Gardens to recognise the community management of green spaces.