The Fontmell Friendship Garden is a community garden, established in 2020 and opened in June 2021.

The garden consists of accessible raised beds filled with cut flowers, specialist dahlias and herbs grown by villagers for villagers. The garden is sited behind the Blackmore Vale Practice in the village of Fontmell Magna where we have strong links with the social prescribing and well being team within the practice. We work in conjunction with the practitioners to create a warm and inviting space for the community to get together and enjoy the outdoors.

All villagers are welcome to get involved in the garden in any way they would like. Over the past two years, villagers have grown flowers from seed, donated surplus plants, divided plants from their gardens, watered and weeded the garden on a rota, planted on mass garden plant out days and enjoyed cutting blooms for their own homes and for villagers.

In our first year in 2021, the garden was dedicated to cut flowers which were enjoyed by so many people. 2022 gave us the opportunity to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of our late Queen Elizabeth with some incredible beds planted by our clubs.

The theme for 2023 is colours of the rainbow and the coronation and seeds will soon be distributed to sow and growaround the village.

We launched a pop up café in conjunction with the garden which runs in the warmer months from May to September in the village hall on Wednesday afternoons from 2-4. Volunteers make cakes or help serve drinks and it is a wonderful opportunity to get together on a regular basis.

We have also had National Play Day celebrations, Hello Yellow mornings which highlight the importance of mental health and some creative sessions making flower posies and living decorations.

The garden has links with all the stakeholders in the village and beyond. St Andrew’s Primary School, The FontmellUnder Fives, Yewstock School, Clayesmore Prep and Senior School and Springhead are all regular visitors to the garden and have planted bulbs, sunflowers and cut flowers in dedicated beds.