I first heard about Wendy Shillam’s wonderful rooftop garden via the Chelsea Fringe. It’s a small, but perfectly formed fruit, veg and flower garden, 5 floors up, and just round the corner from Oxford Circus in the heart of our metropolis.
I say perfectly formed, as this bijou veg patch also comes with a fully equipped writing shed,
and a very productive greenhouse.
It’s hugely impressive and utterly delightful.
Each time I visit, I’m wowed by how much veg Wendy grows in her 6 inch raised beds,
and how, over the years, she’s developed strategies for taming the wind on her rooftop to allow her to grow such a wide variety of plants.
This Spring, Wendy is running a number of workshops on growing year round salad leaves, edibles for a healthy diet, yoghurt making using herbs for flavouring and ‘preserving sweet flavours that are a million miles away from shop-bought cocktails and sugary colas’. Booking is now open, and I’m really looking forward to going on the first workshop in March.And talking of the Chelsea Fringe, the website is now open for signing up events if you’d like to participate! This year it runs from 20th May until the 4th June. Our community veg growing project joined in in 2012 and 2013. It’s massively enjoyable to take part,
and also great to see as many as possible of the hundreds of events that pop up each year (fernery in a toilet from 2013 above).
I can’t wait to see what the Fringe has in store for 2017……(Above-Geoff at the Inner Temple Gardens Dog Show in 2013)
Shed envy. *Makes plans to do hers up*.
Hi Nicolette, Yes, it’s a gorgeous spot to pen one’s tome!
Beautiful 💞
Love everything about it. Classy and productive – both good things. 🙂
Hi Judy, you’re right. It’s very classy and a wonderful space for afternoon tea or an evening tipple while harvesting one’s crops.
So gorgeous to look at and full of good things to eat.
What a wonderfully productive and beautiful space. I’d like to move into that shed!
‘Hugely impressive and utterly delightful’ really does sum up this amazing garden. It’s completely and utterly inspirational to see what someone can do with limited space/resources! Thank you so much for all your wonderful blog posts 🙂
It never ceases to amaze me what can be grown in unconventional, small and sometimes inhospitable places. A tribute to the imagination and no doubt hard graft of the gardener concerned. Wendy’s workshop should be inspiring.
Simply Beautiful and so nice how u spend that much effort on getting the images so nicely done!
This is incredible. As an apartment renter in Chicago with a budding roof top garden, this is truly an inspiration. I’m very impressed by the abundance of plants she’s been able to grow. What a wonderful oasis!
[…] also get the chance to visit Wendy Shillam’s wonderful rooftop garden this Saturday 2oth May (near Oxford Circus) and she’ll be holding great day courses […]
I would also like to prepare the similar garden for summer. It is beautiful and eye catching. It looks like garden home.
Its good! Shed can be used as a storage room or as a living room.