Forest Garden - Transition Town Ilford

Weekly Sessions on Fridays 10 am to 12 pm

Our Forest Garden is in Valentines Park on the Southern end, just next to the Brisbane Road entrance.

We began working on our forest garden in late 2020. We are all volunteers who are part of Transition Town Ilford. We are planting a wonderful range of plants, from trees such as the mulberry and shrubs such as the juneberry all the way down to wood sorrel and wild strawberries.

We are creating a food forest based on permaculture principles as a long-term community project. It has become a well- loved space where people regularly wander through the woodchip paths, take a log seat and be in nature, play on the wooden stepping stones, pick some herbs, taste berries …. It is used as a nature space by local Schools and clubs, and we run regular events here, including an annual festival. Click here to see the latest festival.

We have divided the area up into growing areas and some have been planted and some are waiting for planting. It’s lovely here, come and take a walk through or join our regular gardening sessions.

We have recently put a funding application to Kew Gardens for plants – see this video for a good introduction to the Forest Garden and our plans for 2025. We worked on an arts project in 2024 with Colours Redbridge.

Want to know more? Get in touch. We are always looking for new volunteers and to involve local groups and Schools.

We are also running a pilot project called Love the Cran Brook (click here)to see if we can restore the brook (that emerges by the Forest Garden) to a biodiverse waterway.

To read more information about what a forest garden is, click here: What is a forest garden final