One of my current projects is to revamp the garden at The Belvedere Centre, our local community centre in Norwich.

There are borders in front of the community centre and a delightful gated, wooded garden at the back. But both have been neglected for a number of years and need quite a lot of work.

Last August, with a team of enthusiastic volunteers, we cleared brambles, privet and sycamore seedlings from part of the back garden.

In October Vanna and I planted perennials and shrubs in the borders by the car park at the front of The Belvedere Centre.

Another part of the renovation was to do some tree work, with the blessing of Norwich City Council tree officers, to remove congested branches and fell a couple of rather spindly trees from a row of five Snakebark Maples. This work took place between October and January and the garden already looks much better. We’ve used some of the logs to create habitat piles here and in the Grapes Hill Community Garden.

We’ve drawn up a planting plan for the back garden and will do more clearing then planting during the next three months, so that we should hopefully have a much improved garden by the time summer comes.

Read the next update about the garden.

Before clearance, September 2011

After clearance, November 2011

Planting shrubs at front of Centre, October 2011

Tree surgery, January 2012