Sensory Garden - Friends of Beckenham Place Park - Beckenham Place

In 2011 the garden was created with funding from The Big Lottery Fund through the Groundwork Community Projects program. Lewisham Council Green Scene permitted refurbishment of the rose garden area within the formal gardens of Beckenham Place Park. Several people, groups, organisations, volunteers performed work in the garden as well as the Friends of BPP volunteers and some landscaping was contracted from Phoebes Garden Centre. The Friends volunteer team maintain the garden and the park gardeners work in some parts of the garden. We cooperate in exchanging ideas for improving the garden.

The Garden is open to all to enjoy. We ask you to appreciate that the garden is for the enjoyment of everyone so please treat it with care, and not be tempted to pick flowers. Regretably not everyone is considerate as some plants have been stolen and please keep dogs on leads and not allow them to foul the garden. There are plenty of areas in the park for games, dog walking and other activities which may not be suitable for the formal garden.

The garden follows this plan for touch, sight and smell, sound as far as possible but some plants have attributes for more than one sense e.g. herbs that release scent when touched.

The garden is Sensory and Wildlife so plants good for birds and pollenators are encouraged. We're not too fussy about weeds which are 'wild flowers growing in the wrong place' and some wild flowers and grasses are quite impressive.

These pictures show how the garden looks now and how it developed from the overgrown rose and lavendar garden.

Recap; Before (2010)	Recap: After (2020)
2018 - not much bare earth, most things thriving June 2015,	2020 Covid Lockdown leads to some overgrown appearance. The summer has also been extremely hot and dry. June 2013, plants establishing, lavendar coming into bloom, planting continues, bulbs dormant until next spring.
July 2013, Plants maturing, folliage spreading	July 2013, Beds filling out with a variety of blossom, bees and scent
Before work started The Rose Garden, tired and overgrown, plants exhausted and beyond control.(2011) 2010/11 The overgrown garden	Paths undefined and overgrown (2011) 2010/11 The overgrown garden
The old plants have been removed, beds dug over and the garden waiting for the landscapers from Phoebes Garden Centre to begin work.(2011)	After Phoebes work you can see the paths defined and surfaced, raised beds constructed and access ramp built. Here the Friends' volunteers do more digging in preparation for planting. The worn out turf around the beds is due to be replaced by the park gardeners (2012)
The park's gardeners have re-turfed the edges of the flower beds and levelled the soil. New lavendar plants have been put in the central circular bed around the bird feeder table.(2012)	Wood chip mulch has been put on the beds by the community payback team and the first plants have been put in. (2012)
Spring 2013, bulbs donated by Bulbs for London are coming into bloom. A stepping stone path throughh one of the beds can be seen in the foreground.(2012)	Hyacinths in the foreground, Woodruff with white flowers. Spring 2013.
Early 2013, More planting in progress, some plants from 2012 getting established.