Barshaw Park community growing space

Celebrating the town’s textile heritage, the new RHS Community Garden in Scotland will create a space where all can grow, learn and relax

Paisley, Renfrewshire has a rich heritage as a centre for the weaving industry – a textile past that will be celebrated in a new green space coming to the town. Revealed as the location for Scotland’s RHS Community Garden, a former donkey paddock in the town’s Barshaw Park will be transformed into a space where local people can learn, garden and socialise together.

Gardening near and far

Funded by the RHS Community Grant Scheme and designed by landscape duo Nicola Semple and Susan Begg of Semple Begg, Paisley’s new community garden will feature paisley pattern-style raised beds. The garden will be managed by volunteer collective Friends of Barshaw Park who look forward to a growing space accessible to all, and where local people are helped to explore horticulture further afield with the likes of a tool library and gardening buddy system.

“The creation of a new community garden will serve as a local hub, enabling the group to even more freely share their skills with residents and inspire many more people to get growing.”

Angela Smith, RHS Development Officer for Scotland

Green credentials

Local materials will be used and cleverly repurposed throughout the garden – from local distilleries’ recycled barrels used for wheelchair-accessible raised beds, to larch sleepers sourced and grown on the Isle of Bute used for surrounding walls. Visitors to the garden will be able to enjoy fruit trees of local varieties and edible hedges with Scottish berries, while natural composting, rainwater collection and a wormery all add to the garden’s green credentials.

The locations of the other new community gardens receiving RHS Community Grant Scheme funding are: Huntingdon (England), Randalstown (Northern Ireland) and Blaenavon (Wales). All four projects receive an additional £15,000 over the course of three years to support the groups’ work within their communities.

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The Royal Horticultural Society is the UK’s leading gardening charity. We aim to enrich everyone’s life through plants, and make the UK a greener and more beautiful place.