Two gardeners wearing hi-vis looking at plants and greenery

Planting more Postcode Gardeners to create greener streets

Bringing back nature

Daily contact with nature is linked to less stress, better mood and better health. People want healthier and greener streets but they often lack the time or skills to maintain new planting.

That’s where a Postcode Gardener can help, employed to green up streets in one postcode area and bring neighbours together.

Three school girls digging in a flower bed with trowels.

What does a Postcode Gardener do?

Postcode Gardeners are experts at getting people outdoors, socialising and working together. They help grow plants for flowers, food and wildlife along streets, in front gardens and anywhere else people can enjoy them.

They co-ordinate the plan for the postcode, do some gardening themselves and give volunteers gardening skills so that everyone can dig in and create greener streets.

A boy digging in a street side planter with a tree growing in it

Watch the launch of our latest project

Our Postcode Gardeners are working where they're needed most

We've identified new areas that would really benefit from some street gardening, by mapping out places that lack green space and are most at risk of air pollution, flooding and urban heating.

In partnership with The Co-operative Bank, we're funding Postcode Gardeners in communities in these areas, to green up their spaces in the way they want. Together, they'll bring back nature to 1,000 spaces across the country. Over the next 3 years, we'll be setting up more and more Postcode Gardeners, in the communities that need nature the most.

Our Postcode Gardener projects
A man and two women sit on a bench smiling for the camera

Postcode Gardeners in action

Planter boxes lining a street in front of terrace housing in Hackney, London

Street planters, made by the community, giving space for year round planting.

Gardener handing out seeds to young children

Bringing school and youth groups into gardening sessions, showing local young people some gardening skills.

Rhubarb and other plants growing in a small area of a car park

Even small areas of a car park can be filled with edible plants for the community to enjoy.

An illustrated graphic contrasting two scenes, with a tear down the middle. One side shows idyllic farmland with a hedgehog, and a house with solar panels. The other side shows the Houses of Parliament by a sewage-ridden river and a sign saying "Warning: Environmental hazard"

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Our rivers and seas are full of sewage but instead of cleaning them up, the UK government want to unravel the rules that protect the environment. If we want safeguard people and nature, we need to keep these legal protections in place. Find out what’s at risk.
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