Mixed Borders: The London Open Garden Square Weekend

The tomatoes are plumping and the lawns greening ready for this year’s London Open Garden Square Weekend.

For the second year running, the Poetry School  and the London Parks and Gardens Trust have planted trainee poets-in-residence amongst London allotments, churchyards and communal spaces for a weekend dedicated to opening up London’s secret gardens to curious visitors.

These mini residencies are the perfect way to pick up the public-facing poetry skills necessary for working on longer and more extensive projects – many of the poets we worked with on last year’s Mixed Borders project have gone on to just that sort of project. Carol Rowntree Jones, one of our original residency trainees, is this year’s poet in residence for the South Downs Poetry Festival – a direct result of her participation in our scheme.

London Open Garden Square Weekend takes place on Saturday & Sunday 18 and 19 June. We caught up with some of our green-fingered poets to find out how their plans were progressing, and unearthed a huge list of activities, ranging from poems planted on stakes and those on seed-impregnated paper, to a new garden-based verse play and some herbal haiku, via poetry bunting and floral poetry treasure hunt trails.

Visit the OGS website for details of the weekend, including a full list of all the gardens. We have poets in these gardens …

Alara, All Saints Fulham, Arundel & Elgin, Barnsbury Wood, Bonnington, Branch Hill Allotments, Cable Street Community Gardens, Canary Wharf, Castle Climbing, Christchurch Greyfriars, Cleary Gardens, Core Landscapes, Courtfield, Crossbones, Eastbury, Fann Street, Jamyang, Nevern Square, Nomura, Postman’s Park, Rainham Hall, Red Cross Garden, St Dunstans East, St Lukes, St Mary’s Secret, Thrive and Winchmore Hill

… and they’d all welcome your visit.

http://www.opensquares.org/