October News From The Garden
Hi Everyone,
What's new, you might be asking? Well, that's a great question!
Islington in Bloom Awards - St John’s Garden for Best Park
New Silverware!
Well, gold to be precise! St John's Garden was awarded Gold and First Place for Best Park in last week's Islington in Bloom Awards 2025!!! This is a huge accolade and testament to everyone who helps in the garden, from picking up litter as we pass through each day, to planting an edible forest, leading walks and sound baths, creating beautiful signs, growing herbs, eating strawberries, straightening sticks, counting butterflies, liaising with councillors, conducting soil tests, tidying dead hedges, turning compost, moving mulch, listening to birds, creating maps, gifting plants, supporting with donations, organising irrigation, watering beds, making bird balls and raking leaves - it all adds up to something very special indeed The judges described the community's involvement and transformation of SJG as MAGIC - and we couldn't agree more
New Event announced for the Clerkenwell Pollinator Path!
The final set of pollinator surveys are taking place this week across 15 green spaces in Clerkenwell and the brilliant ecologists at Pollinating London Together will be sharing their findings and recommendations for all the surveyed sites at 5.30-7.30pm on Monday 8th December at The Charterhouse (thank you Justin for very kindly hosting us again). This will also be an opportunity to catch up with each other and share ideas for how we'd like to put the findings into practice next Spring. Which plants will best support our bees and butterflies? What if I have a shady site? Where will the pollinators nest? How can I get involved? How will we spread the word about the project? Everyone is welcome to join and free tickets are available on Eventbrite here. If you're unable to make it in person, the presentation part of the event will be livestreamed at 6pm on Instagram @stjohnsgarden.ec1 and if you'd like to share your thoughts in advance on how we develop the Clerkenwell Pollinator Path in 2026, please respond to this email with suggestions for how you'd like to help!
And if you'd like to receive Pollinator Path updates (every 2-3 months) you can subscribe here. Everyone is welcome to join - not just Clerkenwell peeps - and we hope that the Pollinating London Together findings and recommendations will be insightful and useful across the borough.
Adopting the first person singular for a moment, I'm (Sarah) running my first (and last!) ever ultramarathon this weekend to raise funds for pollinator plants and habitats along the Pollinator Path. The training has almost finished me off I'm afraid but I'm holding my nerve and here's the link to JustGiving for anyone who would like to help support nature restoration in our neighbourhood. It's the Bournemouth Run to the Sea Ultramarathon so hopefully not too hilly and lots of beautiful nature to enjoy along the route. My fundraising target is an ambitious £2,500 and I'm 40% there so if you can help me get over the line all donations large and small are hugely appreciated. See you on the other side.
Our fancy new website
Our New Website is LIVE!
We have a website! https://www.stjohnsgardenec1.org/ While we’ve managed just fine without one so far, we've identified a few scenarios that could greatly benefit from having a more central location to direct people. Most of you on our newsletter will get the details of what we are up to in your inbox, but here are a few ways you might find the website helpful.
Activities Calendar - We've included our seasonal activities calendar on the homepage. We'll continue to send this out at the start of the season, but if you misplace it or want to check something, the latest details will always be on the website for you to refer back to.
Updates - we'll also publish our newsletter updates and biodiversity updates on the News and Events blog so you can refer back to them if they’ve gone missing in your inbox.
Discover our Latest Projects - We have a number of longer-term projects we are working on. Including the Clerkenwell Pollinator Path, the Hidden Histories of St John’s Garden and the Edible Forest project.
Team volunteering - one of the most effective ways we raise money for the garden is by hosting groups of corporate volunteers for team days in the garden. We have a PDF deck we send out to inbound leads, but you can read more about it here and either share it with your team or others you think might be interested.
Donations - we are always open to donations for specific projects or just to support the work we do in the garden. We have a simple way to donate online if you're interested!
Huge thank you to Thomas White and Analisa Plehn for all their work bringing this to life! It's a stunning website and they made it look effortless! Thomas is a budding website designer who volunteered his summer break time to the project, and we couldn't recommend him enough! He's open to paid projects and community volunteer projects that he can fit around his school work - you can reach out to him here. There is a lot of work that goes into gathering all the information and turning it into something usable and beautiful for us to be proud of as a community - feedback is always welcome, and we hope you find it useful!
New Project & a last-minute invitation...
We're really excited to be working with masters students at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) as they undertake research on the effectiveness of bee hotels in urban environments. Last year, students monitored different types of bee hotels in the City; this year they'll be extending their research to Islington as part of the Clerkenwell Pollinator Path and will be installing bee hotels along the path in Spring. To kick off the project, Dr Clara Montgomery is bringing her students to SJG tomorrow afternoon (Thursday) at 4pm so she can introduce them to the different types of bee hotel and bee habitat that are available. Dr Montgomery's own PhD was on the subject of bee hotels and she is a fount of knowledge so if you'd like to come along and say hello & hear what she has to say about the role of bee hotels in urban gardens, please do!
And finally...the Autumn calendar is attached, this month's community gardening is happening on Saturday 18th October and there are just a few tickets left for Fran's "Italian Clerkenwell" guided walk at 10am on Saturday 15th November. These fantastic free walks, led by an experienced Islington Guide are capped at 12 people and always sell out fast so please RSVP to this email if you'd like to be added to the guest list.
Ciao everyone & we hope to see you in the garden soon
Sarah, Susanna, Analisa, Liz and Ian
(Friends of SJG committee)