Memorial Gardens is a vital area of public green space within central Kingston. A group of second year landscape architecture students would be working with Kingston Council and Quadron Services to transform planting areas within the Gardens. The design flair, labour and enthusiasm will be provided by the students, who will be guided by two professional landscape architect tutors with experience of related projects, and Quadron Services ground maintenance team.

What we'll deliver:

• Winter 2014: Weed, prune, cultivate, and add manure initially as ground preparation
• Spring 2014: Establish new colourful and seasonal planting layers to raised beds.
• Regenerate other bare areas, or areas of predominantly evergreen shrubbery.
• New planting will aim to be use low maintenance and drought tolerant planting mixes.
• A final layer of mulch will be added after planting: to conserve moisture and suppress weeds.

Why it's a great idea:

Budget limitations have inevitably had an impact on the levels of maintenance of some of our local public open spaces, Memorial Gardens has also suffered from specific degradation over recent years. The new project would aim to plant the seeds for re-generation, sending out a clear message that the community values this public space, and hopefully also inspiring more local people to become more actively involved.

Steps to get it done:

• Collaborative approach between the local authority, stakeholders and University.
• (The Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames, Kingston First, University of Kingston)
• Raise funds and use the combined available skill and labour to activate local community involvement.
• Ensure success by working closely with the local authority's grounds maintenance contractor.
• Existing grounds maintenance team would be responsible for making all purchases required.
• A catalyst to kickstart the project would see this planting initiative designed and planted by the students.
• Planting would take place early next Spring 2014.
• A successful collaborative relationship such as this one may be replicated elsewhere in the borough.