OUR AMBITIONS

The garden is already a space of tranquillity, away from a busy world, but there are many undeveloped opportunities for sitting within the garden amongst the plants, spaces for quiet conversation and personal wellbeing. The structure of the ambitious planting scheme is now firmly established and this highlights opportunities for Sarah and our Head Gardener to develop the planting through unexpected and exciting combinations, creating more sensory experiences through the seasons. And the greenhouse – with all its potential to become a hub for community propagation – has never been finished. 

With your support, we will be able to:

• Build and install furniture nestled within the planting, enabling quiet conversation and reflection throughout the year.

• Enhance the planting scheme, creating increased tranquillity and wellbeing through sensory experience

• Enable community propagation and plant sharing by completing our iconic greenhouse.

The garden is filled with thoughtful plant choices that respond to the varied conditions across the site. The front garden, for example, is sun-drenched in the summer but must withstand strong winds in the winter and occasional waterlogging after heavy rainfall. As the built and climatic environment continues to change around us the garden must respond to these changes developing in harmony with the environment.  With your help this is a challenge The Exchange, the community and Sarah Price can meet in a thoughtful way that not only secures the garden’s future but one that will inspire and inform the green spaces of the future.

Biodiversity at The Exchange has flourished since initial planting, we are inundated with worms, bugs, birds and butterflies but there is more to do, and the next phase of the garden will be focusd on further establishing habitats for our local species in support of nature.

With your help, we will be able to:

• Create water features and ponds, creating new habitats for important species

• Improve rainwater collection, helping us to reduce mains water use

• Respond to changes in our built and climatic environment. With planned building works in the area, and continued challenges with climate change we need to ensure we can innovate.

Every week, a team of incredible Garden Volunteers come to help our Head Gardener with the garden’s maintenance. Our programme also regularly includes garden learning activities for families and adults. But the garden can do much more – we have the potential to deliver a more ambitious learning programme, inspiring a whole new generation of garden makers.

Recently, we received a wonderful donation of botanical books that belonged to local resident Margot Godfrey. Drawing together our history as a library, the need for quiet space in the community, and an ambition for horticultural learning, we will turn our Mulberry Room into a Botanical Research Library & Reflection Space.

With your support, we will be able to:

• Design and deliver a Garden Learning Programme that will inspire a new generation of garden makers, from young people to young adults and beyond, in experimental horticulture

• Welcome and support more Garden Volunteers where learning and community are embedded into the experience

• Transform the Mulberry Room into a Botanical Research Library and Reflection Space.