Workshop: Christmas Wreath Making

Join us for a festive hands-on wreath making workshop, led by our resident plant creative expert, Tracy.

You’ll be guided through designing and creating your own large, unique wreath to take home and enjoy over the festive period. We’ll be sharing a range of using all natural plants, foliage, fruits and other materials from the Garden, and foraged locally. As with all our workshops, sustainability sits at the forefront, and this year we’re moving to a moss-free, completely compostable willow frame base.

All materials (plus vegan mulled wine and mince pies!) provided on the day.

Tracy’s festive wreath-making sessions are highly popular with our community year after year, so book early to avoid disappointment.

Meet Tracy

With an encyclopedic knowledge of plants and gardening, Tracy gives out wonderful advice to our community as a Walworth Garden Plant Centre Supervisor. She also shares her knowledge within our social and therapeutic programmes in gardening sessions for those with mental health difficulties and/or facing barriers to mental health care. As a former florist, Tracy’s creative skills with foliage are second to none, and her wreath making sessions have a dedicated following!

Price: £65/ Free for Southwark residents

Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARKHALF-25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.

You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

Please note this year we’re moving to a moss-free, completely compostable willow frame base.

This workshop is now fully booked

You might also be interested in the following:

Workshop: Introduction to Gardening

One of our most popular workshops, Introduction to Gardening guides you through the approaches and essential knowledge that will help you to become a successful gardener. This is the first session we recommend to all with little or no gardening experience, and especially those hoping to begin gardening at home in their houses, balconies, or gardens. Join us in our award-winning and sumptuously-planted garden for this primary insight into the fundamentals of sustainable and future-facing gardening. We also allow (and encourage!) plenty of time for questions, and welcome discussion in shaping the session. This session will cover:

• Growing media, compost and soil

• The basics of propagation

• What to grow that's easy

• Gardening with nature

• Pruning

• Pests and diseases - avoidance tactics that are kind to the ecosystem

• Right plant, right place and aspect - considerations for planning

Please note that for those interested in learning to grow food, we have another course called ‘Introduction to Food Growing’.

Meet Charlie

Charlie is a Peckham local who is passionate about both the community and the environment. With a background in health and social care management, he is invested in promoting community involvement and environmental issues through organic gardening. Charlie is an expert in landscape and planting design within urban environments, and is currently teaching the next generation of horticulturalists as a Garden Education Officer here at Walworth Garden.

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents
Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sep 24 Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.
You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

Can’t make this date? We are running this workshop again on the dates below! Click through to find out more.

Already attended this workshop? Why not try the below?

Workshop: Hands-On Hedge Laying

This hands-on workshop is an opportunity to learn about the ancient craft of laying hedge, with insight into the benefits it can bring for wildlife, its aesthetic value in the garden, and larger-scale land management.

Join Danny for an introduction to the basics of this highly practical skill, including the safety, tools and equipment required to do it at home yourself, and you will also get the chance to work with some of our newly planted mixed native hedging as we set to work laying it over.

This session is for anyone who wants to gain the confidence to try laying hedge themselves for the first time. Together we will explore:

● The practice and story of hedge laying, and what makes it such a precious craft

● The botany of hedges: cambium, sap flow and the species we use

● Safety, tools and equipment required to lay hedge

● The holistic practice: binders, stakes and coppicing (due to time constraints, we will not be able to undertake these elements practically)

● The practical techniques of staking, laying hedge, and binding

Meet Danny (he/him)

Danny (he/him) started his career as a maintenance gardener, later joining the RHS at Wisley to build community gardens. He was Education Manager at Walworth Garden for three years and now works as a gardener at Regent's Park University. Danny has a deep and long-standing relationship with plants, and loves nothing more than bringing their fascination closer to other people. He is constantly on the lookout for new and radical approaches to gardening and design, whether it be using alternative materials, unusual cultivars or simply fresh approaches to what a garden can be. Danny takes joy in teaching in the perfect classroom that is Walworth Garden where he specialises in our design courses and wildlife friendly approaches to gardening.

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents

Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.

You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

This workshop is now fully booked.

If you would like to be on the waiting list for this workshop, please enter your details below:

Already attended this workshop? Why not try the below?

Workshop: Herbal Support Approaches Through Perimenopause

Rites of Passage: Knowing Ourselves through the Time of Perimenopause and the Second Spring – an intergenerational exchange with herbal and connected support approaches.

’The most powerful force in the world is a menopausal woman with zest’ - Margaret Mead, 1950

This interactive, participatory workshop is a coming together of participants to share experience, knowledge and support around our journeys through menstrual life into the age of richness and nuanced wisdom! We invite you to join, both if you are in your peri or post-menopausal time and also if you are still in the cyclical phase of life and would like to learn from elders about experiences that may lie ahead of you. This day will offer opportunities to:

• Share our experiences in circle with each other to deepen our understandings of this time of life

• Exchange guidance in emotional, spiritual and physical approaches to balance the journey

• Hear about diverse cultural perspectives and traditions relating to this profound rite of passage and reframe the colonial/capitalist/biomedical reduction of our bodies and health to ‘decline in ovarian function’

• Learn about plant medicine, nourishment and body practice support that we can access and enjoy on a daily basis to strengthen our bodies and souls through the changes.

Together we will explore:

• The physical and psychological aspects of menstrual life ceasing, a basic level of understanding what is happening in our bodies, and the links between this and our experiences

• The ways in which a holistic appreciation of our health can enable us to connect the dots and support ourselves in different aspects of these experiences

• Some of the herbs that are specific to supporting our body systems – nervous, endocrine and hormonal, digestive and liver, circulatory, musculo-skeletal – that are involved with the processes of menopause

• Foods and practices that particularly nourish our bodies at this time of life

• Practical medicine making – herbal teas, tinctures & infused oils – to build a home kit for wise healing in necessary moments You will leave the session with a remedy to take home, a heart full of shared support and herbal nourishment and resources to hold and guide you in the path forward in this rich next part of your journey.

Meet Rasheeqa

Rasheeqa is a community medical herbalist based in east London with 10+ years experience of facilitating group learning and teaching short and long courses in many aspects of herbal medicine. She is a tutor on the Heartwood Herbalism Foundation Course and a clinical trainer for the Professional Course. She is passionate about collaborative and participatory herbalism in the community, with a focus on sharing and exchanging healing traditions between the diverse cultures and knowledge of London. She is co-founder of Community Apothecary Waltham Forest in north London which is a social enterprise sharing knowledge and practices of plant medicine through community herb gardens, learning and collective remedy making. https://www.hedgeherbs.org.uk/

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents
Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.
You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

You might also be interested in:

Workshop: Creating Zero-Waste Flavourful Ferments

This workshop is an introduction to fermentation for beginners, starting with the best way to chop vegetables and work with vegetable left overs, and ending with the creation of zero waste ferments. The session will cover introduction to fermentation as an ancient food preservation practice across the world, its health benefits and waste-reduction methods. We will then create individual prep stations for step-by-step guidance on:

• Jar preparations and storage methods

• Flavour combinations and how to get creative by expanding flavour profiles according to your own personal preference.

• Ferment ratios

• General dos and don’ts

We will also share ways to include more ferments into your daily eating habits, as well as a demonstration on making fermented pico de gallo that we will share as a light snack.

There will be plenty of opportunities to ask questions, and you will leave with a jar of vegetables ready for a fermenting process, along with fermenting recipe, instructions, and process reminders sent to you via email. This session is ideal for anyone who wants to learn basic fermentation principals or is curious about fermentation.

Meet Iva (she/her)

Iva has made London her home and developed a career as a plant based chef over the last 15 years, and is passionate about showing people how to include more plants and wholefoods into daily eating habits, and how to develop creativity as a home chef. She is a director and a founder of Nourish Lab London, running community chef-led plant based cooking, workshops, and everything plants in South London.

Growing up in Yugoslavia, now Croatia, in the 1970s, where all the food was prepared from scratch, she learned about foraging wild herbs for food and teas, along with their healing properties, as well fishing and diving for edible shellfish and meat preservation. This was part of seasonal food tradition, and influenced her to shift to a plant-based lifestyle some 30 years ago. She has participated in regular family food preserving growing up, including everything from drying figs and olives, pickling, making jams and fruit preserves, fermenting, and particularly making massive batches preserved of cabbage for the family’s year ahead. As a child, she would be placed in fermenting barrels to walk over the cabbage for the fermentation process.

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents
Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.
You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

This workshop is now fully booked.

You might also be interested in our other workshop Fermentation: Creating Kombucha and Sauerkraut

If you would like to be on the waiting list for this workshop, please enter your details below:

You might also be interested in:

Workshop: Introduction to Food Growing

In this popular introductory workshop, we’ll cover all of the basics you need to begin growing your own fruit and vegetables. Whilst one of the most satisfying parts of gardening, getting started can seem daunting: over the years we’ve pulled together a balanced (practical and discursive) one day course that empowers you with guiding principles and hands-on advice so that you can learn to grow simple, delicious and sustainably-grown food. The workshop will include:

• What to grow: how can you get the most out of your space?

• When to sow, transplant and harvest: how to do it

• Growing with the planet in mind: Organic approaches, Seed suppliers, fertilisers and composting

• Problem-solving: sustainable approaches to pests, disease and damage

• Technical skills: seed-sowing, pricking out, potting on

This forward-thinking workshop is an opportunity to rethink our approaches to garden design, planting, and all traditional gardening practices. As gardeners and allotmenteers, we often forget we act as custodians not only of the land but also of its inhabitants.  While traditional gardening encourages us to 'sanitise' our spaces by removing a range of ‘threats’, this works to alienate our wildlife and contribute to its decline.

Meet Jack (he/him)

Jack is a Garden Education Officer at Walworth Garden, teaching students on our Level 2 Work-Based Horticulture Diploma courses. He lives in South London and volunteers on a variety of community growing initiatives as well as experimenting and developing new regenerative growing methods, closing waste stream loops and building healthy soil.

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents
Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24-Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25 under ‘Redeem Coupon’.
You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

This workshop is now fully booked.

If you would like to be on the waiting list for this workshop, please enter your details below:

Can’t make this date? We are running this workshop again on the dates below. Click through to find out more.

You might also be interested in:

Workshop: Botanical Perfume Making

Plants have been used in many forms since antiquity in devotional rituals and celebrations, to fragrance the air, anoint, cleanse, heal, beautify and to stir the senses. Discover these origins and the remarkable role of aromatic plants in this immersive workshop, where you will enjoy a hands-on, interactive time embracing the theory and creative art of botanical perfumery. With this new knowledge, plus sampling and discussion, you will be guided on basic perfumery composition and blending in order to create your personal 10ml natural perfume rollerball blend to take home.

We’ll be covering:

• The origins and history of perfume

• Understand perfume vocabulary – the art of smelling and training the nose

• Perfume structure – Top, Middle, Base notes

• Difference between oil and perfume alcohol based fragrance blending

• Fragrance classifications

• Secrets of blending & dilutions

• Safety and storage

Meet Tanya

Tanya (TIDHA, MIFPA) trained as a Clinical Aromatherapist, which led to further studies in natural perfumery and formulating. She now combines her clinical work with delivering events and workshops in aromatic blending, botanical skincare and perfumery; and provides conceptual fragrance ideas for events, heritage sites and public spaces. She has a passion for unusual ingredients, botanical history and use of plants in folklore. You can follow her on Instagram and Twitter @perfumemistress and find out more about her work on her website here https://www.theperfumemistress.com/

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents

Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’. You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

This workshop is now fully booked.

If you would like to be on the waiting list for this workshop, please enter your details below:

Can’t make this date? We are running this workshop again on the date below. Click through to find out more.

You might also be interested in:

Workshop: Ferns and Spores: Sowing and Cultivating

This practical and theoretical workshop is an opportunity to learn more about the fern life cycle, how they reproduce and how you can grow your own from spore to adult and back again.

We’ll explore:

• The stages of a fern’s life

• What a fern spore is and where to find them

• How to collect and store spores for sowing

• How to sow spores and grow them on

This session is ideal for anyone who has ever been entranced by the subtle beauty of a fern frond but is mystified at the prospect of growing them. This session will prove it’s easier than you think; often all you need is patience.

You will leave with the confidence and skill to start propagating the ferns you find in your world, as well as your own sown pot of spores to take with you to watch them green up and grow.

Meet Richard

Richard is an active member of London’s community gardening movement, facilitating networking and peer-to-peer training with Social Farms & Gardens, and delivering nature engagement and community food growing activities across the city. Previously, he trained as a horticulturist with the RHS, Cambridge Botanic Garden and Kew Gardens. He has been growing ferns for 5 years now, and can often be found anxiously peering and poking into pots of spores, willing the unfolding of ferny magic to go faster.

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents
Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.
You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

Already attended this workshop? Why not try the below?

Workshop: Introduction to Gardening

One of our most popular workshops, Introduction to Gardening guides you through the approaches and essential knowledge that will help you to become a successful gardener. This is the first session we recommend to all with little or no gardening experience, and especially those hoping to begin gardening at home in their houses, balconies, or gardens. Join us in our award-winning and sumptuously-planted garden for this primary insight into the fundamentals of sustainable and future-facing gardening. We also allow (and encourage!) plenty of time for questions, and welcome discussion in shaping the session. This session will cover:

• Growing media, compost and soil

• The basics of propagation

• What to grow that's easy

• Gardening with nature

• Pruning

• Pests and diseases - avoidance tactics that are kind to the ecosystem

• Right plant, right place and aspect - considerations for planning

Please note that for those interested in learning to grow food, we have another course called ‘Introduction to Food Growing’.

If you would like a more in-depth version of this workshop, we are also running it in a 2-day version.

Meet Tracy

With an encyclopedic knowledge of plants and gardening, Tracy gives out wonderful advice to our community as a Walworth Garden Plant Centre Supervisor. She also shares her knowledge within our social and therapeutic programmes in gardening sessions for those with mental health difficulties and/or facing barriers to mental health care.

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents
Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sep 23- Jul 24). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.
You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

Can’t make this date? We are running this workshop again on the dates below! Click through to find out more.

Already attended this workshop? Why not try the below?

Workshop: Radical Herbal Histories

Join community herbalist Rasheeqa on a journey through the cycle of histories of healing. This unique, discussion-based session will explore how societal processes and narratives from the last thousand years have led us directly to how and where we live now in our relationships with the earth, healthcare, and plant medicine. Unearthing the origins and roots of herbal medicine, the stories of women healers in history, and the violence of patriarchal, colonial, and capitalist domination, this workshop will consider how we can respond to the histories we are born from, and how we might move into healthier relations and futures.

The session will also include:

● Herb tasting and collective medicine making to honour and continue the ancient intelligence and care of ancestors

● Majority world wisdoms and resilient traditions

● The sharing of experiences, knowledge and perspectives

● Resources for future explorations

Research and consideration on this history informs Rasheeqa’s work with the daily experiences of healthcare injustice and neglect that she holds space for in her clinical and community practice, and informs her approach to her work in supporting the health of people, in collaborating with others, and in responding to imbalances in our power dynamics that generate systemic illness.

Meet Rasheeqa

Rasheeqa is a community medical herbalist based in east London with 10+ years experience of facilitating group learning and teaching short and long courses in many aspects of herbal medicine. She is a tutor on the Heartwood Herbalism Foundation Course and a clinical trainer for the Professional Course. She is passionate about collaborative and participatory herbalism in the community, with a focus on sharing and exchanging healing traditions between the diverse cultures and knowledge of London. She is co-founder of Community Apothecary Waltham Forest in north London which is a social enterprise sharing knowledge and practices of plant medicine through community herb gardens, learning and collective remedy making. https://www.hedgeherbs.org.uk/

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents
Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.
You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

Can’t make this date? We are running this workshop again on the dates below. Click through to find out more.

You might also be interested in:

Workshop: Planning Your Kitchen Garden

Homegrown produce is not only tastier but, when your plot is well and truly thriving, it can even reduce your grocery bills. The ability to harvest new potatoes while they are still expensive in the shops, harvest difficult-to-buy delicacies like sprout tops, or have a constant supply of salads and herbs through the summer, is a satisfaction that comes from growing your own.

Join our organic kitchen garden expert Sarah to learn how to start a beautiful and productive plot in four easy steps: designing your space, preparing your soil, maximising yield, and planning ongoing maintenance of your garden.

We will give you guidance to create your own individualised design for your new kitchen garden and provide lots of ideas and practical tips on how to make this happen - please bring along photographs and/or diagrams of your plot to help create your new design!

This session is ideal for anyone who is keen to start growing their own vegetables and fruit and want to explore how to design their available space for both beauty and functionality

Together we will explore:

● Design principles and how they relate to fruit and vegetable growing

● Identifying your soil type and how to improve it where needed and look after it well

● Choosing crops to grow that are right for you and your space

● Looking after your kitchen garden to keep it beautiful and productive

You will leave this session with a personalised plan of your new kitchen garden layout and lots of ideas for what to grow and how to maintain it

Meet Sarah

Sarah began her gardening journey in 2005, working with disabled people helping them to overcome ongoing mental ill-health by accessing gardening. She went on to run gardening projects and sessional tutoring for Age UK Merton and EcoLocal teaching, before completing the RHS Level 3 Diploma in Horticulture, and working as a Senior Tutor, delivering horticultural training to disabled adults, and teaching City and Guilds Practical Horticulture Courses to Level 2. Sarah has completed her RHS Master of Horticulture degree course with distinction and was the recipient of the RHS Chittenden award for coming top of her year group, she continues to pass on knowledge by teaching at EcoLocal, Sutton Parks Department, Imperial College London, Merton College and Walworth Garden. Sarah also works for the RHS as an examinations officer and assessor. In her spare time, Sarah looks after her own garden and allotment and enjoys cooking, sewing and yoga.

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents

Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.

You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

You might also be interested in:

Workshop: Container Gardening

This workshop is designed to share the methods to growing within the confines of containers, and transforming them into scaled-down gardens. We will decipher some of the skills, knowledge, and terminology to help you compose successful, long-lasting container gardens, from window boxes to small outdoor balconies and gardens.

This workshop will also be valuable to those who do have larger gardens to work with - one of the joys of pots and containers is that they can be moved! In bigger spaces, they can be brought into the fore to be celebrated, and then moved into the background while dormant, and we’ll also be covering how to manage this.

The session will explore:

● Types of containers, choosing plants that will work well in them, and grouping plants together

● High rise balconies and dealing with the exposure they might create for plants; artificial landscapes and how to deal with them for best effect

● Growing media - avoiding peat, what is available, what you can mix yourself, and what suits your plant choices

● Drainage, feeding, and other maintenance tasks to ensure ongoing success

Meet Alice (she/her)

Alice grows vegetables, fruit and herbs in central London rooftop gardens for fine dining chefs. She also manages a range of spaces for wildlife, from a pollinator garden on an industrial estate to private back gardens and cafe courtyards. She previously taught the Level 2 Horticulture qualification at Walworth Garden.

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents
Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.
You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

You might also be interested in:

Workshop: Introduction to Gardening

One of our most popular workshops, Introduction to Gardening guides you through the approaches and essential knowledge that will help you to become a successful gardener. This is the first session we recommend to all with little or no gardening experience, and especially those hoping to begin gardening at home in their houses, balconies, or gardens. Join us in our award-winning and sumptuously-planted garden for this primary insight into the fundamentals of sustainable and future-facing gardening. We also allow (and encourage!) plenty of time for questions, and welcome discussion in shaping the session. This session will cover:

• Growing media, compost and soil

• The basics of propagation

• What to grow that's easy

• Gardening with nature

• Pruning

• Pests and diseases - avoidance tactics that are kind to the ecosystem

• Right plant, right place and aspect - considerations for planning

Please note that for those interested in learning to grow food, we have another course called ‘Introduction to Food Growing’.

Meet Charlie

Charlie is a Peckham local who is passionate about both the community and the environment. With a background in health and social care management, he is invested in promoting community involvement and environmental issues through organic gardening. Charlie is an expert in landscape and planting design within urban environments, and is currently teaching the next generation of horticulturalists as a Garden Education Officer here at Walworth Garden.

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents
Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sep 23- Jul 24). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.
You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

Can’t make this date? We are running this workshop again on the dates below! Click through to find out more.

Already attended this workshop? Why not try the below?

Workshop: Incense Making

Since the days of ancient Egypt and Rome, incense has been used for purification, ceremony, devotion and pure pleasure. Today, with 5,000 years of tradition and aesthetic refinement at its core, the use of incense is reaching new levels of popularity. Join us for a unique one-day session exploring the ancient, devotional art of incense. This creative, practical workshop focuses on using premium fragrant materials, such as resins, herbs; fruits; flowers seeds; spices and essential oils selected for their historic, therapeutic, fragrant and magical resonance.

You will be introduced, via smell and touch, to a variety of plant botanicals including essential oils, understand their history, their uses and how to select and blend them to create your own beautiful and unique incense. We will then make two sets of incense: the first will be a batch of incense cones made together as a group, and this will be followed by guidance through making of a set of loose incense individually, where you will be able to select your own choice of ingredients with which to make this bespoke.

We will also explore:

● History of incense and types of incense

● Fragrant botanical ingredients, essential oils and binders and how to work with them

● Safe preparation and creative blending guidelines

● Troubleshooting, tips and tricks to ensure your cones burn evenly and smell great

● Safety, dilutions, storage, creating a formula and record keeping

This session is ideal for anyone who is fascinated by incense, enjoys experimenting with plants and fragrance and who wishes to make clean, therapeutic and bespoke incense for their personal use or as gifts.

Please note the cones will need approx. 24 - 36 hours to fully dry out at home - please bring a shallow lunch box or similar container, to store and transport your cones home safely!

Meet Tanya

Tanya (TIDHA, MIFPA) trained as a Clinical Aromatherapist, which led to further studies in natural perfumery and formulating. She now combines her clinical work with delivering events and workshops in aromatic blending, botanical skincare and perfumery; and provides conceptual fragrance ideas for events, heritage sites and public spaces. She has a passion for unusual ingredients, botanical history and use of plants in folklore. You can follow her on Instagram and Twitter @perfumemistress and find out more about her work on her website here: https://www.theperfumemistress.com/

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents

Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.

You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

You might also be interested in:

Workshop: Pruning Skills

This practical workshop is designed to clarify the technical skills for those wishing to prune their own plants at home. One of the more technical tasks at the turn of the gardening year, pruning can sometimes intimidate those new to gardening. In this Pruning Skills workshop, you’ll learn why pruning is such an integral part of managing a garden, as well as demystifying the skills and techniques required to succeed. Together we will examine, through examples, the basic approaches to pruning a range of different types of plant for different reasons, working with the plants in our beautiful South London garden. In this workshop, we will cover:

• Why prune? The benefits to plants, animal life, and gardeners!

• Safe use of tools and equipment, and their basic maintenance

• Practical pruning of herbaceous perennials, shrubs and trees

• Pruning with purpose: flowers, fruit, health, and structure

• Integration into other garden practices: dead-hedging, composting and garden structures

Meet Jack

Jack is a Garden Education Officer at Walworth Garden, teaching students on our Level 2 Practical Horticulture Skills Diploma courses.He lives in South London and volunteers on a variety of community growing initiatives as well as experimenting and developing new regenerative growing methods, closing waste stream loops and building healthy soil.

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents
Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.
You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

You might also be interested in:

Workshop: Botanical Body Care

This practical, creative, hands-on workshop is designed to show you how to create simple, effective yet luxurious bath and body products using botanical materials and fragrant, therapeutic essential oils that you can tailor for yourself and others.

Learn how to combine simple ingredients to make three effective, eco-friendly yet luxurious bath and body treats to take home, with further suggestions on ingredients, blending and adapting recipes at home to continue your sustainable self-care skills.

We will look at how to combine ingredients safely and for personalised effects, understand good basic knowledge of key essential oils, herbs and other botanical extracts. This session is ideal for anyone who is interested in eco-friendly skincare, natural products and wishes to deepen their connection to plant based ingredients, and those looking for homemade gift inspiration!

Together we will explore:

● The benefits and uses of natural, botanical ingredients and essential oils

● How to create effective, simple bath soaks, scrubs and hand cream to maintain healthy skin and boost wellbeing

● How to combine essential oils safely for cosmetic, therapeutic and fragrant effect

● How to adapt recipes and blends and further develop creativity at home to make effective skincare for personal use and gifts.

You will leave this session with increased confidence and understanding of how simple natural ingredients can be used in your daily wellbeing and skincare regime, plus create 3 skin and bath-care products to take home, in addition to comprehensive notes with further suggestions on experimenting.

Please bring along a pen and notebook if you wish to make personal notes

Meet Tanya

Tanya (TIDHA, MIFPA) trained as a Clinical Aromatherapist, which led to further studies in natural perfumery and formulating. She now combines her clinical work with delivering events and workshops in aromatic blending, botanical skincare and perfumery; and provides conceptual fragrance ideas for events, heritage sites and public spaces. She has a passion for unusual ingredients, botanical history and use of plants in folklore. You can follow her on Instagram and Twitter @perfumemistress and find out more about her work on her website here https://www.theperfumemistress.com/

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents
Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.
You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

You might also be interested in:

Workshop Introduction to Fundraising for Community Groups (Online)

Note, this is a shorter, online version of our Introduction to Fundraising for Community Groups workshop.

Join our in-house fundraiser to discover the many pots of money your group could be eligible to receive, and how to access them. Focusing on self-directed fundraising from trusts and foundations for project-based work (and what all this jargon means!), this session is ideal for those with little to no experience in fundraising, and anyone who volunteers or works with community groups (particularly gardening groups) and would like to begin supporting them further by bringing in funding.

We will be demystifying grant process in its full cycle, and covering:

• Searching for appropriate funds

• Selecting what to apply for

• Completing a successful application

• Common hurdles and pitfalls,

• What to do when you win a grant (and when you don’t!)

• Reporting back to the grant maker

We’ll be focusing mostly on gardening spaces and the people that work within them, but the general tips and tricks will be widely applicable, so this session with also be of interest to anyone who might like to explore a career in fundraising and/or the wider charity sector, but would like to know more about what this field entails.

You’ll leave with some helpful resources to move you forward, and ready to complete your first grant application. Handouts will be provided but you may want to bring a notebook and pen.

Meet Francesca

Francesca has been working in written communications for nearly 10 years, and made the jump into fundraising around 4 years ago. Responsible for all fundraising at Walworth Garden, she has experience securing grants of all sizes for our charitable projects and capital works from a range of charitable trusts and foundations. Francesca has an MA in the Anthropology of Sustainability, with a research focus on the intersections of environmental and social justice issues. She is passionate about accessibility and inclusion within the charity sector, and diverting funds to small, grassroots organisations.

Price: £65/ Free for Southwark residents

Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARKHALF-25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.

You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

You might also be interested in:

Workshop: Habitats and Planting for Pollinators

Habitats and Planting for Pollinators with Benny Hawksbee

This workshop is designed to help you boost your wildlife gardening skill set - with a focus on wild pollinators.

We will look at bee identification; show you which species are likely to be around your area; show you where they might be nesting and ways to get closer to them in general. We’ll also look at ecological gardening practices, with a large focus on insects and solitary bees, explaining how to boost habitat, how to maintain that habitat/improve existing and the number of species in your space and give tangible examples of what you can do.

This session is ideal for anyone who cares about pollinators, nature or wildlife gardening in general.

The session will cover:

• Basic bee ID. The key bees to keep an eye out for in London (and their associated ecology - where they nest, which flowers they prefer etc.)

• Alternative ways of gardening (e.g. pruning method) to boost habitat creation

• Ways of making habitat for solitary bees and wasps (including drilling holes in timber for solitary bees)

• Maintenance techniques, such as mowing regimes and hedge trimming

• Basic kit for spotting insects and giving yourself the best chance of ID

You’ll leave feeling more confident and less anxious about how to separate honeybees from mining bees; how to distinguish hoverflies that pretend to be bees from the real thing, and to know how to create and manage habitat for ground-nesting and aerial-nesting bees.

Meet Benny

Benny is a former marine biologist who has been working as a gardener and wildlife advocate for the last nine years. He is the Head Gardener for Eden Nature Garden in Clapham where he works with the local community to drive interest in plants and wildlife. He also works with John and Fiona Little at their experimental Hilldrop garden in Essex, as well as managing the garden maintenance of spaces around London. He is particularly focused on thoughtful, city gardening with a focus on wild insects and the combination of weeds and more conventional garden plants.

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents
Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Oct 23- Jul 24). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.
You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

Can’t make this date? We are running this workshop again on the dates below! Click through to find out more.

You might also be interest in:

Workshop: Planning and Maintaining a City Garden

This new workshop is designed as an opportunity to enhance your gardening knowledge and grow your confidence in successfully planning and maintaining a small city garden. As unique spaces with specific conditions, small city gardens present a range of opportunities that require customised attention regarding plant choices and maintenance routines. This session will give you a solid foundation how to appraise, plan and maintain them.

This workshop will be theoretical, classroom based session covering basic principles and techniques, along with a garden walk session to evaluate plants and sample plant combination in the garden, with a discussion on the scenarios you might encounter. We will also be sharing our tips on how to create and maintain a small biodiverse and resilient garden with minimal use of resources but maximum positive output for wildlife and wellbeing and enjoyment, allowing you to welcome life and colour into your space through a design and installation that works for you.

This session is recommend to all that would like to make the most of their city garden (their own or a shared or community space), regardless of experience level. We will look at common issues in city gardens using some of the participants’ own gardens as case studies, and you are encouraged to bring your questions. There will be a small practical garden design/plant choice exercise to apply whats has been discussed and to experiment with individual ideas.

You will leave with an understanding of some of the problems and solutions for their own space, as well as a feeling for its potential.

Please bring along photos of your garden (good or bad!) for the discussion session.

Meet Sophie (she/her)

Sophie, Deputy Head Gardener at the Inner Temple Garden, takes a particular interest in biodiverse planting schemes for city greening focusing on sensible, resourceful, and sustainable horticultural practices. She graduated from Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, followed by the Master of Horticulture with Distinction with the RHS. She also cultivates London’s floating gardens in Bermondsey, a barge community of roof top gardens representing unique biodiverse resilient planting within a mild riverside microclimate. Sophie is passionate about the adaptation of horticultural practices as well as the creation of planting schemes for the current and future climate.

As a London gardener, Sophie is passionate about teaching and sharing horticultural knowledge, gardening skills and growing experiences with the community and to provide learning guidance and encouragement to anyone at any skill level to explore the pleasure and satisfaction in caring and developing their own or shared green spaces.

@innertemplegarden

@london.floating.gardens

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents

Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.

You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

Already attended this workshop? Why not try the below?

Workshop: Botanical Perfume Making

Plants have been used in many forms since antiquity in devotional rituals and celebrations, to fragrance the air, anoint, cleanse, heal, beautify and to stir the senses. Discover these origins and the remarkable role of aromatic plants in this immersive workshop, where you will enjoy a hands-on, interactive time embracing the theory and creative art of botanical perfumery. With this new knowledge, plus sampling and discussion, you will be guided on basic perfumery composition and blending in order to create your personal 10ml natural perfume rollerball blend to take home.

We’ll be covering:

• The origins and history of perfume

• Understand perfume vocabulary – the art of smelling and training the nose

• Perfume structure – Top, Middle, Base notes

• Difference between oil and perfume alcohol based fragrance blending

• Fragrance classifications

• Secrets of blending & dilutions

• Safety and storage

Meet Tanya

Tanya (TIDHA, MIFPA) trained as a Clinical Aromatherapist, which led to further studies in natural perfumery and formulating. She now combines her clinical work with delivering events and workshops in aromatic blending, botanical skincare and perfumery; and provides conceptual fragrance ideas for events, heritage sites and public spaces. She has a passion for unusual ingredients, botanical history and use of plants in folklore. You can follow her on Instagram and Twitter @perfumemistress and find out more about her work on her website here https://www.theperfumemistress.com/

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents

Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’. You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

Can’t make this date? We are running this workshop again on the date below. Click through to find out more.

You might also be interested in:

Workshop: Introduction to Gardening

One of our most popular workshops, Introduction to Gardening guides you through the approaches and essential knowledge that will help you to become a successful gardener. This is the first session we recommend to all with little or no gardening experience, and especially those hoping to begin gardening at home in their houses, balconies, or gardens. Join us in our award-winning and sumptuously-planted garden for this primary insight into the fundamentals of sustainable and future-facing gardening. We also allow (and encourage!) plenty of time for questions, and welcome discussion in shaping the session. This session will cover:

• Growing media, compost and soil

• The basics of propagation

• What to grow that's easy

• Gardening with nature

• Pruning

• Pests and diseases - avoidance tactics that are kind to the ecosystem

• Right plant, right place and aspect - considerations for planning

Please note that for those interested in learning to grow food, we have another course called ‘Introduction to Food Growing’.

If you would like a more in-depth version of this workshop, we are also running it in a 2-day version.

Meet Charlie

Charlie is a Peckham local who is passionate about both the community and the environment. With a background in health and social care management, he is invested in promoting community involvement and environmental issues through organic gardening. Charlie is an expert in landscape and planting design within urban environments, and is currently teaching the next generation of horticulturalists as a Garden Education Officer here at Walworth Garden.

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents
Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sep 23- Jul 24). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.
You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

Can’t make this date? We are running this workshop again on the dates below! Click through to find out more.

Already attended this workshop? Why not try the below?

Workshop: Practical Plant Propagation

In this workshop, we aim to pass on as much green-fingered know-how as possible, so that you have the confidence to 'go forth and propagate' in your own gardens and green spaces.

Discover all the tricks of the trade for propagating plants, from sowing taking cuttings from a range of plants, division techniques, and seed sowing, this course will give you hands-on experience and the confidence to nurture new plants into life at home, with very little expense and cost to the wider environment.

The session will cover the techniques and care requirements for:

● Softwood and tip cuttings

● Leaf and leaf section cuttings

● Division and root cuttings

● Hardwood cuttings

● Growing a range of plants from seed

As well as an introduction to the kinds of growing media, we’ll also cover the equipment and tools that are required for successful propagation.

Meet Alice (she/her)

Alice grows vegetables, fruit and herbs in central London rooftop gardens for fine dining chefs. She also manages a range of spaces for wildlife, from a pollinator garden on an industrial estate to private back gardens and cafe courtyards. She previously taught the Level 2 Practical Horticulture Skills qualification at Walworth Garden.

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents
Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.
You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

You might also be interested in:

Workshop: Introduction to Food Growing

In this popular introductory workshop, we’ll cover all of the basics you need to begin growing your own fruit and vegetables. Whilst one of the most satisfying parts of gardening, getting started can seem daunting: over the years we’ve pulled together a balanced (practical and discursive) one day course that empowers you with guiding principles and hands-on advice so that you can learn to grow simple, delicious and sustainably-grown food. The workshop will include:

• What to grow: how can you get the most out of your space?

• When to sow, transplant and harvest: how to do it

• Growing with the planet in mind: Organic approaches, Seed suppliers, fertilisers and composting

• Problem-solving: sustainable approaches to pests, disease and damage

• Technical skills: seed-sowing, pricking out, potting on

This forward-thinking workshop is an opportunity to rethink our approaches to garden design, planting, and all traditional gardening practices. As gardeners and allotmenteers, we often forget we act as custodians not only of the land but also of its inhabitants.  While traditional gardening encourages us to 'sanitise' our spaces by removing a range of ‘threats’, this works to alienate our wildlife and contribute to its decline.

Meet Jack (he/him)

Jack is a Garden Education Officer at Walworth Garden, teaching students on our Level 2 Practical Horticulture Skills Diploma course. He lives in South London and explores building complex ecosystems through experimental planting and habitat creation to benefit people and wildlife.

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents
Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sep 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.
You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

Can’t make this date? We are running this workshop again on the date below. Click through to find out more.

You might also be interested in:

Workshop: Habitats and Planting for Pollinators

Habitats and Planting for Pollinators with Benny Hawksbee

This workshop is designed to help you boost your wildlife gardening skill set - with a focus on wild pollinators.

We will look at bee identification; show you which species are likely to be around your area; show you where they might be nesting and ways to get closer to them in general. We’ll also look at ecological gardening practices, with a large focus on insects and solitary bees, explaining how to boost habitat, how to maintain that habitat/improve existing and the number of species in your space and give tangible examples of what you can do.

This session is ideal for anyone who cares about pollinators, nature or wildlife gardening in general.

The session will cover:

• Basic bee ID. The key bees to keep an eye out for in London (and their associated ecology - where they nest, which flowers they prefer etc.)

• Alternative ways of gardening (e.g. pruning method) to boost habitat creation

• Ways of making habitat for solitary bees and wasps (including drilling holes in timber for solitary bees)

• Maintenance techniques, such as mowing regimes and hedge trimming

• Basic kit for spotting insects and giving yourself the best chance of ID

You’ll leave feeling more confident and less anxious about how to separate honeybees from mining bees; how to distinguish hoverflies that pretend to be bees from the real thing, and to know how to create and manage habitat for ground-nesting and aerial-nesting bees.

Meet Benny

Benny is a former marine biologist who has been working as a gardener and wildlife advocate for the last nine years. He is the Head Gardener for Eden Nature Garden in Clapham where he works with the local community to drive interest in plants and wildlife. He also works with John and Fiona Little at their experimental Hilldrop garden in Essex, as well as managing the garden maintenance of spaces around London. He is particularly focused on thoughtful, city gardening with a focus on wild insects and the combination of weeds and more conventional garden plants.

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents
Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Oct 23- Jul 24). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.
You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

Can’t make this date? We are running this workshop again on the dates below! Click through to find out more.

You might also be interest in:

Workshop: Introduction to Gardening

One of our most popular workshops, Introduction to Gardening guides you through the approaches and essential knowledge that will help you to become a successful gardener. This is the first session we recommend to all with little or no gardening experience, and especially those hoping to begin gardening at home in their houses, balconies, or gardens. Join us in our award-winning and sumptuously-planted garden for this primary insight into the fundamentals of sustainable and future-facing gardening. We also allow (and encourage!) plenty of time for questions, and welcome discussion in shaping the session. This session will cover:

• Growing media, compost and soil

• The basics of propagation

• What to grow that's easy

• Gardening with nature

• Pruning

• Pests and diseases - avoidance tactics that are kind to the ecosystem

• Right plant, right place and aspect - considerations for planning

Please note that for those interested in learning to grow food, we have another course called ‘Introduction to Food Growing’.

Meet Tracy

With an encyclopedic knowledge of plants and gardening, Tracy gives out wonderful advice to our community as a Walworth Garden Plant Centre Supervisor. She also shares her knowledge within our social and therapeutic programmes in gardening sessions for those with mental health difficulties and/or facing barriers to mental health care.

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents
Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Oct 23- Jul 24). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.
You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

Can’t make this date? We are running this workshop again on the dates below! Click through to find out more.

Already attended this workshop? Why not try the below?

Workshop: Practical Herbal Pharmacy

This practical, interactive and hands-on workshop is an opportunity to explore and practice making the range of herbal preparations we can craft at home and in our communities, with seasonal plants that are locally accessible and growing in our gardens and in the wild. We will be learning about the methods, appropriate uses, and applications of key remedies including infusions, decoctions, tinctures, vinegars, oxymels, and infused oils and balms.

We will also cover the connections between the healing plants of our localities and their traditional uses and medicines through history; the seasonality of herbal healthcare; tailoring our remedies to our healthcare and wellbeing needs; the theory and practice of making medicines at home including key materials and equipment; and the making of preparations that you will take home along with the recipes.

Together we will explore:

● Seasonal harvesting of garden and wild medicinal plants for medicine and practices of reciprocal, sustainable relationships with our natural environment

● A range of key herbal preparations that you can make at home with their purposes, methods and rationale, and appropriate usages

● Effective and careful drying of herbs harvested seasonally, for quality herb stores through the year

● Matching preparations to people and healthcare situations e.g. herbal teas versus tinctures, children’s remedies and dosages, and first aid at home

● Kitchen medicine and making home remedies from your cupboards

● Sharing our collective knowledge and experience from our own backgrounds, cultures and healing practices to build a stronger bank of herbal healthcare in the group.

● The potency of medicines made by our hands, with plants we have grown and/or gathered ourselves from our local places, with love and care.

The session will leave you more confident and practiced in making specific herbal preparations, and with a more detailed knowledge of how and why we make them. It will be great for anyone who has already enjoyed our Introduction to Herbal Medicine workshop, or has otherwise begun their journey into herbalism. Participants will take home a set of remedies made through the session.

If you can, please bring along 3 sterilised glass jars for some of the preparations. You might also want to bring a notebook and pen for taking notes, and/or camera.

Meet Rasheeqa

Rasheeqa is a community medical herbalist based in east London with 10+ years experience of facilitating group learning and teaching short and long courses in many aspects of herbal medicine. She is a tutor on the Heartwood Herbalism Foundation Course and a clinical trainer for the Professional Course. She is passionate about collaborative and participatory herbalism in the community, with a focus on sharing and exchanging healing traditions between the diverse cultures and knowledge of London. She is co-founder of Community Apothecary Waltham Forest in north London which is a social enterprise sharing knowledge and practices of plant medicine through community herb gardens, learning and collective remedy making. https://www.hedgeherbs.org.uk/

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents
Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.
You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

You might also be interested in:

Workshop: Introduction to Mushroom Growing

Join us in learning about the fascinating world of mushrooms and fungi, and create your own take home oyster mushroom bag.

Local expert Adi will share his experiences as a mushroom forager and grower, and you’ll discover mushrooms’ hidden secrets, explore their vital role in nature, and gain a deep appreciation for their incredible diversity.

Under Adi’s guidance, we will then delve into the art of mushroom cultivation and learn the step-by-step process involved in nurturing these extraordinary organisms. From selecting the perfect substrate to creating the ideal growing conditions, you’ll acquire the knowledge and skills to begin on your own mushroom cultivation journey.

This session is ideal for anyone with an interest in mushrooms and those who want to learn how to grow their own oyster mushrooms. All are welcome, whether you are completely new to mushroom growing or want to deepen your or share your own knowledge/experience.

This session will explore:

- What are mushrooms and fungi?

- The role fungi play in nature and ecological systems.

- Mushrooms and humans: mycelium and its applications

- Mushroom cultivation and sustainable (urban) food production.

- How to create the ideal growing conditions for your oyster mushrooms at home.

You will leave this session with your very own mushroom grow at home bag and all you need to know to be able to enjoy watching them grow.

Meet Adi

Adi is the director of Urban Mushrooms London Ltd and is, a passionate advocate for sustainability, mycelium, and mushrooms. With a background in social work, Adi brings a unique perspective to this work, driven by a desire to make a positive impact on the community. Adi has over 45 years of mushroom foraging experience and started growing mushrooms in 2022 at the Remakery Brixton. He sells fresh mushrooms and mushroom products at local farmers’ markets and leads on foraging walks and cultivation workshops.

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents

Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’. You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

You might also be interested in:

Workshop: Botanical Perfume Making

Plants have been used in many forms since antiquity in devotional rituals and celebrations, to fragrance the air, anoint, cleanse, heal, beautify and to stir the senses. Discover these origins and the remarkable role of aromatic plants in this immersive workshop, where you will enjoy a hands-on, interactive time embracing the theory and creative art of botanical perfumery. With this new knowledge, plus sampling and discussion, you will be guided on basic perfumery composition and blending in order to create your personal 10ml natural perfume rollerball blend to take home.

We’ll be covering:

• The origins and history of perfume

• Understand perfume vocabulary – the art of smelling and training the nose

• Perfume structure – Top, Middle, Base notes

• Difference between oil and perfume alcohol based fragrance blending

• Fragrance classifications

• Secrets of blending & dilutions

• Safety and storage

Meet Tanya

Tanya (TIDHA, MIFPA) trained as a Clinical Aromatherapist, which led to further studies in natural perfumery and formulating. She now combines her clinical work with delivering events and workshops in aromatic blending, botanical skincare and perfumery; and provides conceptual fragrance ideas for events, heritage sites and public spaces. She has a passion for unusual ingredients, botanical history and use of plants in folklore. You can follow her on Instagram and Twitter @perfumemistress and find out more about her work on her website here https://www.theperfumemistress.com/

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents

Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’. You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

You might also be interested in:

Workshop: Gardening for Wildlife

This workshop explores what role gardeners can play in enhancing the miraculous relationship between the plants and animals in our spaces. During the session you will gain insight into simple, achievable actions that can help you to encourage wildlife in your garden and learn to adopt a more relaxed attitude to the way you manage your space. Alongside practical demonstrations of our own radical ‘nature-first’  approach, we aim to discuss current trends in sustainable gardening, with a critical approach to their impact. The session will leave you confident in moving beyond simply ‘organic’ or ‘chemical free’, into embracing the wild, without sacrificing what is most valuable to you in your space.

• ‘If something is not eating your plants, then your garden is not part of the ecosystem’: alternative approaches to pest and disease management

• Creating habitats, forage, and water

• Introduction to some projects for the wildlife gardener: ponds, bee banks, wildflower meadows

• Holistic garden practices: dead-hedging, composting and mess!

Meet Jack (he/him)

Jack is a Garden Education Officer at Walworth Garden, teaching students on our Level 2 Practical Horticulture Skills Diploma course. He lives in South London and explores building complex ecosystems through experimental planting and habitat creation to benefit people and wildlife.

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents
Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.
You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

You might also be interested in:

Workshop: Fermentation: Creating Kombucha and Sauerkraut

This hands-on session is an opportunity to learn about fermentation, the benefits of fermentation and how to create ferments at home to support a healthier gut and reduce food waste. We will introduce the basics of fermentation and how fermented foods and drinks can help support a happy and healthy gut and mind, We will be sharing knowledge, skills and tips for participants on how to make a kraut using seasonal and local produce, pickling to reduce food waste as well as making a probiotic fizzy drink at home. This session is ideal for anyone who wishes to understand more about fermentation’s health benefits and for those who want to create ferments at home. No previous fermentation skills needed! Together we will cover:

• Health benefits of fermentation (‘gut-brain axis’)

• Safety and equipment needed to ferment at home

• Making a kombucha, first and second ferment

• Preparing and making a seasonal sauerkraut

• Reducing food waste through pickling

• Discussion about flavours and other ferments to try at home

You will leave this session with 3 ferments and the understanding and basic skills to continue at home.

Meet Candyce

Candyce Dryburgh is a baker, material researcher and self taught biologist. Her work focuses on using waste to investigate and create materials. Her passion is finding ways to reduce waste in the home by fermenting and also how to increase health through fermentation.

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents
Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.
You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

You might also be interested in:

Workshop: Botany in a Day

New gardeners often ask, what is botany? How is it different from horticulture?

Botany simply refers to the ‘study of’ plants, where horticulture focuses on the ‘practice of’ managing and maintaining plants. In this discussion-based session, we will be exploring the theory and science of plants, and learning ten basic rules of botany which will change not only the way you look at your own plants, but how you view the entire natural world around you.

This session is ideal for anyone who would like to understand more about the science of plants. From complete novices to experienced gardeners this workshop is designed for all levels of experience and skill sets.

Together we will explore:

• Plant evolution - how plants have, and continue to, evolve and adapt to a changing environment

• Plant taxonomy and classification - what plants belong to what groups, how can you easily identify these groups

• Plant anatomy and physiology - what function are different parts of a plants anatomy performing

• Botanical terminology - learn how to speak like a botanist

• Rare, Unique and Unusual Advancements in Plants - the weird and wonderful adaptations plants have adopted in response to unique or challenging conditions

The session will demystify and deconstruct the main terminology used in botanical sciences, allowing you to feel comfortably interacting with other botanists and gardeners with an increased knowledge of how plants function, plus a boosted confidence in the management of planted areas.

As this is a theoretical subject and not a practical skill, most of the workshop will take place in a classroom setting, but will involve interactive activities, looking at many live plant examples, and a tour of our award winning organic community garden.

Meet Charlie (he/him)

Charlie is a Peckham local who is passionate about both the community and the environment. With a background in health and social care management, he is invested in promoting community involvement and environmental issues through organic gardening. Charlie is an expert in landscape and planting design within urban environments, and is currently teaching the next generation of horticulturalists as a Garden Education Officer here at Walworth Garden.

Price: £85/Free for Southwark residents
Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.
You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

You might also be interested in:

Workshop: Learning to Bud Graft Fruit Trees

Bud-grafting is something that few amateur gardeners seem to attempt, yet the principle is relatively simple. Like many things, it just takes practice and understanding of the theory behind the magic! Learn how to propagate apple and pear fruit trees by bud grafting in this practical workshop.

These skills are useful to anyone who wishes to propagate fruit and ornamental trees in their garden or allotment

● Learn the technical theory behind budding to propagate onto a variety of rootstock to produce upright, cordon, espalier and step-over trees

● Practice cutting and preparing your chosen bud wood

● Take away information on the choice of rootstocks appropriate for your garden

● Learn how to sharpen and maintain your secateurs and garden knives

● Gain practical bud-grafting experience

You will go away with your own bud grafted apple or pear tree. This course is suitable for those who, while new to grafting techniques, have some basic gardening knowledge and experience. Those who are studying a Level 2 or Level 3 course will find this workshop particularly useful. The course also covers the maintenance and sharpening of grafting knives.

The practical elements of the course will not be suitable for those who have mobility problems with their hands/fingers. We will be using very sharp knives which should be handled with great care.

Bring along your own secateurs and pruning knives if you have them.

Meet Sarah Foss

Sarah began her gardening journey in 2005, working with disabled people helping them to overcome ongoing mental ill-health by accessing gardening. She went on to run gardening projects and sessional tutoring for Age UK Merton and EcoLocal teaching, before completing the RHS Level 3 Diploma in Horticulture, and working as a Senior Tutor, delivering horticultural training to disabled adults, and teaching City and Guilds Practical Horticulture Courses to Level 2. Sarah has completed her RHS Master of Horticulture degree course with distinction and was the recipient of the RHS Chittenden award for coming top of her year group, she continues to pass on knowledge by teaching at EcoLocal, Sutton Parks Department, Imperial College London, Merton College and Walworth Garden. Sarah also works for the RHS as an examinations officer and assessor. In her spare time, Sarah looks after her own garden and allotment and enjoys cooking, sewing and yoga.

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents

Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’. You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

You might also be interested in:

Workshop: Introduction to Gardening

One of our most popular workshops, Introduction to Gardening guides you through the approaches and essential knowledge that will help you to become a successful gardener. This is the first session we recommend to all with little or no gardening experience, and especially those hoping to begin gardening at home in their houses, balconies, or gardens. Join us in our award-winning and sumptuously-planted garden for this primary insight into the fundamentals of sustainable and future-facing gardening. We also allow (and encourage!) plenty of time for questions, and welcome discussion in shaping the session. This session will cover:

• Growing media, compost and soil

• The basics of propagation

• What to grow that's easy

• Gardening with nature

• Pruning

• Pests and diseases - avoidance tactics that are kind to the ecosystem

• Right plant, right place and aspect - considerations for planning

Please note that for those interested in learning to grow food, we have another course called ‘Introduction to Food Growing’.

Meet Charlie (he/him)

Charlie is a Peckham local who is passionate about both the community and the environment. With a background in health and social care management, he is invested in promoting community involvement and environmental issues through organic gardening. Charlie is an expert in landscape and planting design within urban environments, and is currently teaching the next generation of horticulturalists as a Garden Education Officer here at Walworth Garden.

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents
Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Oct 23- Jul 24). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.
You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

Can’t make this date? We are running this workshop again on the dates below! Click through to find out more.

Already attended this workshop? Why not try the below?

Workshop: Wildlife Pond Making

One of the most effective things you can do for a garden’s ecosystem is create a wildlife pond, and we believe every garden should have one, no matter how small. It can be as simple or as elaborate as you like, and the rewards are endless. During this session you’ll learn how to create and maintain a wildlife pond for even the smallest of spaces, from something as simple as a bucket, to the benefit of your garden and local wildlife. You'll leave confident in installing and caring for one in your own garden.

This workshop will cover:

● The benefits of wildlife ponds for urban gardens

● How to construct a simple wildlife pond from simple, readily available materials such as buckets - as well as more elaborate liner ponds

● How to be sure your pond and garden are attracting and promoting wildlife

● How to maintain and care for your wildlife pond and keep it healthy

● Common pitfalls in pond building and maintenance

There will also be plenty of time for questions. Please note that we will not be discussing fish ponds.

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents
Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.
You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

You might also be interested in:

Workshop: Radical Herbal Histories

Join community herbalist Rasheeqa on a journey through the cycle of histories of healing. This unique, discussion-based session will explore how societal processes and narratives from the last thousand years have led us directly to how and where we live now in our relationships with the earth, healthcare, and plant medicine. Unearthing the origins and roots of herbal medicine, the stories of women healers in history, and the violence of patriarchal, colonial, and capitalist domination, this workshop will consider how we can respond to the histories we are born from, and how we might move into healthier relations and futures.

The session will also include:

● Herb tasting and collective medicine making to honour and continue the ancient intelligence and care of ancestors

● Majority world wisdoms and resilient traditions

● The sharing of experiences, knowledge and perspectives

● Resources for future explorations

Research and consideration on this history informs Rasheeqa’s work with the daily experiences of healthcare injustice and neglect that she holds space for in her clinical and community practice, and informs her approach to her work in supporting the health of people, in collaborating with others, and in responding to imbalances in our power dynamics that generate systemic illness.

Meet Rasheeqa

Rasheeqa is a community medical herbalist based in east London with 10+ years experience of facilitating group learning and teaching short and long courses in many aspects of herbal medicine. She is a tutor on the Heartwood Herbalism Foundation Course and a clinical trainer for the Professional Course. She is passionate about collaborative and participatory herbalism in the community, with a focus on sharing and exchanging healing traditions between the diverse cultures and knowledge of London. She is co-founder of Community Apothecary Waltham Forest in north London which is a social enterprise sharing knowledge and practices of plant medicine through community herb gardens, learning and collective remedy making. https://www.hedgeherbs.org.uk/

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents
Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.
You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

Workshop: Introduction to Food Growing

In this popular introductory workshop, we’ll cover all of the basics you need to begin growing your own fruit and vegetables. Whilst one of the most satisfying parts of gardening, getting started can seem daunting: over the years we’ve pulled together a balanced (practical and discursive) one day course that empowers you with guiding principles and hands-on advice so that you can learn to grow simple, delicious and sustainably-grown food. The workshop will include:

• What to grow: how can you get the most out of your space?

• When to sow, transplant and harvest: how to do it

• Growing with the planet in mind: Organic approaches, Seed suppliers, fertilisers and composting

• Problem-solving: sustainable approaches to pests, disease and damage

• Technical skills: seed-sowing, pricking out, potting on

This forward-thinking workshop is an opportunity to rethink our approaches to garden design, planting, and all traditional gardening practices. As gardeners and allotmenteers, we often forget we act as custodians not only of the land but also of its inhabitants.  While traditional gardening encourages us to 'sanitise' our spaces by removing a range of ‘threats’, this works to alienate our wildlife and contribute to its decline.

Meet Jack (he/him)

Jack is a Garden Education Officer at Walworth Garden, teaching students on our Level 2 Practical Horticulture Skills Diploma course. He lives in South London and explores building complex ecosystems through experimental planting and habitat creation to benefit people and wildlife.

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents
Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.
You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

You might also be interested in:

Workshop: Sustainable and Resilient Succession Planting

This new workshop is designed as an opportunity to enhance your plant knowledge and to grow your confidence to successfully plan and maintain the succession of your planting within your garden. Succession planting in garden design is about planning the layout to ensure a continuous display of plants in bloom or something of interest. It involves carefully selecting and positioning plant varieties that will flower or showcase distinctive features at different times.

This session will give you an insight into the techniques in how you can create a dynamic display that changes with the seasons by integrating plants with varying flowering periods, foliage textures, and colours.

This workshop will be theoretical (classroom based) to learn about succession planting principles, practical (garden walk) to evaluate plants and sample plant combination in the garden and discussion based as an opportunity to view and discuss scenarios and to answer individual questions. This session will feature visual samples (photos) from the tutor’s garden projects showcasing expert succession planting for open discussion and question and answer opportunities.

This is a session we recommend to all with some gardening experience that would like to take the next step into creating a successful all year around every season display in their own or a communal garden. There will be a small practical exercise of creating a successional planting plan from a choice of plants to apply what has been discussed, to experiment with individual ideas and to take back as an inspiration for your own garden.

The aim of the course is for students to leave with an understanding on how to extend the season of interest in a garden for visual appeal but also for creating wider biodiversity and for the benefit of wildlife.

Together we will cover:

• Planning and evaluating

• Seasonal Interest

• Layered Planting

• Long-term Vision

• Biodiversity & Wildlife

We will share our tips on how to create and maintain a successional, biodiverse, and resilient garden with minimal use of resources to achieve maximum output for wildlife, wellbeing and enjoyment by welcoming life and colour into your space, through a design and installation that works for you.

Join us for this journey into the fundamentals of sustainable and resilient succession planting. We also encourage plenty of questions, and welcome discussion in shaping the session.

Please bring along photos of the planting in your garden for the discussion session.

Please note this workshop refers to ornamental succession planting in a garden not the succession planting of vegetable gardening which is used to ensure a constant supply of fresh produce.

Meet Sophie (she/her)

Sophie, Deputy Head Gardener at the Inner Temple Garden takes a particular interest in biodiverse planting schemes for city greening focusing on sensible, resourceful, and sustainable horticultural practices. She graduated from Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, followed by the Master of Horticulture with Distinction with the RHS. She also cultivates London’s only floating gardens in Bermondsey, a barge community of roof top gardens representing unique biodiverse resilient planting within a mild riverside microclimate. Sophie is passionate about the adaptation of horticultural practices as well as the creation of planting schemes for the current and future climate.

As a London gardener, Sophie is passionate about teaching and sharing horticultural knowledge, gardening skills and growing experiences with the community and to provide learning guidance and encouragement to anyone at any skill level to explore the pleasure and satisfaction in caring and developing their own or shared green spaces.

@innertemplegarden

@london.floating.gardens

Price: £85/ Free for Southwark residents
Free places are available for Southwark residents aged 19+. Each resident can claim 1 place per academic year (Sept 24- Jul 25). To check whether you are eligible, please click here.

To claim your free place, click ‘Book Here’ below, and enter code ‘SOUTHWARK25’ under ‘Redeem Coupon’.
You will then be charged a £10 deposit in order to claim your place, this deposit will be refunded to you after you attend the workshop.

Please note that you will be required to fill in a Southwark Council form, including some personal information, in order to confirm your place on a workshop. Your place will not be confirmed until this has been completed in full.

You might also be interested in:

Workshop: Container Gardening

This workshop is designed to share the methods to growing within the confines of containers, and transforming them into scaled-down gardens. We will decipher some of the skills, knowledge, and terminology to help you compose successful, long-lasting container gardens, from window boxes to small outdoor balconies and gardens.

This workshop will also be valuable to those who do have larger gardens to work with - one of the joys of pots and containers is that they can be moved! In bigger spaces, they can be brought into the fore to be celebrated, and then moved into the background while dormant, and we’ll also be covering how to manage this.

The session will explore:

● Types of containers, choosing plants that will work well in them, and grouping plants together

● High rise balconies and dealing with the exposure they might create for plants; artificial landscapes and how to deal with them for best effect

● Growing media - avoiding peat, what is available, what you can mix yourself, and what suits your plant choices

● Drainage, feeding, and other maintenance tasks to ensure ongoing success

Price: £85
Southwark resident looking for a free place? Unfortunately we are unable to offer free places on August workshops. Places are however available on other sessions throughout the year.

Workshop: Botanical Perfume Making

Plants have been used in many forms since antiquity in devotional rituals and celebrations, to fragrance the air, anoint, cleanse, heal, beautify and to stir the senses. Discover these origins and the remarkable role of aromatic plants in this immersive workshop, where you will enjoy a hands-on, interactive time embracing the theory and creative art of botanical perfumery. With this new knowledge, plus sampling and discussion, you will be guided on basic perfumery composition and blending in order to create your personal 10ml natural perfume rollerball blend to take home.

We’ll be covering:

• The origins and history of perfume

• Understand perfume vocabulary – the art of smelling and training the nose

• Perfume structure – Top, Middle, Base notes

• Difference between oil and perfume alcohol based fragrance blending

• Fragrance classifications

• Secrets of blending & dilutions

• Safety and storage

Meet Tanya

Tanya (TIDHA, MIFPA) trained as a Clinical Aromatherapist, which led to further studies in natural perfumery and formulating. She now combines her clinical work with delivering events and workshops in aromatic blending, botanical skincare and perfumery; and provides conceptual fragrance ideas for events, heritage sites and public spaces. She has a passion for unusual ingredients, botanical history and use of plants in folklore. You can follow her on Instagram and Twitter @perfumemistress and find out more about her work on her website here https://www.theperfumemistress.com/

Price: £85

Southwark resident looking for a free place? Unfortunately we are unable to offer free places on August workshops. Places are however available on other sessions throughout the year.

Workshop: Introduction to Gardening

One of our most popular workshops, Introduction to Gardening guides you through the approaches and essential knowledge that will help you to become a successful gardener. This is the first session we recommend to all with little or no gardening experience, and especially those hoping to begin gardening at home in their houses, balconies, or gardens. Join us in our award-winning and sumptuously-planted garden for this primary insight into the fundamentals of sustainable and future-facing gardening. We also allow (and encourage!) plenty of time for questions, and welcome discussion in shaping the session. This session will cover:

• Growing media, compost and soil

• The basics of propagation

• What to grow that's easy

• Gardening with nature

• Pruning

• Pests and diseases - avoidance tactics that are kind to the ecosystem

• Right plant, right place and aspect - considerations for planning

Please note that for those interested in learning to grow food, we have another course called ‘Introduction to Food Growing’.

If you would like a more in-depth version of this workshop, we are also running it in a 2-day version.

Meet Charlie (he/him)

Charlie is a Peckham local who is passionate about both the community and the environment. With a background in health and social care management, he is invested in promoting community involvement and environmental issues through organic gardening. Charlie is an expert in landscape and planting design within urban environments, and is currently teaching the next generation of horticulturalists as a Garden Education Officer here at Walworth Garden.

Price: £85

Note for Southwark residents: Looking to book a free place? Unfortunately, our limited quota of free places for the 2024-25 academic year have now been claimed. We will be releasing a refreshed number of free places, along with a new calendar of workshops, in Autumn 2025 so please check back then. Subscribe to our newsletter or follow us on social media, at the bottom of this page, to be notified.

Workshop: Autumn/Winter Veg Growing

While we often think of food growing as a spring and summer pursuit, almost all growing spaces have the capacity to continue growing delicious vegetables all the way through winter.

In this workshop you’ll learn basic organic food growing principles and techniques and leave ready to keep your vegetable plants feeding you through the year. You’ll discover how to grow healthier, more abundant crops that can have additional benefits to wildlife in London, and help you become more self-sufficient.

We’ll look at:

• What you can and can’t sow and grow for autumn and winter and the unique microclimate London offers for small scale food growers

• Positioning and protecting your food plants to get the most from them

• A demonstration of seed sowing, and recommendations of organic seed suppliers

• Growing and harvesting for a (near) continuous supply of food through the winter

• The differences in annual, biannual and perennial vegetables and their seasonal benefits

This session is ideal for anyone who wants to broaden their veg growing knowledge, and will leave you more confident to grow throughout the year.

Meet Jack (he/him)

Jack is a Garden Education Officer at Walworth Garden, teaching students on our Level 2 Practical Horticulture Skills Diploma course. He lives in South London and explores building complex ecosystems through experimental planting and habitat creation to benefit people and wildlife.

Price: £85
Southwark resident looking for a free place? Unfortunately we are unable to offer free places on August workshops. Places are however available on other sessions throughout the year.