It’s not often that I walk about the streets of London with a clipboard, looking at the bases of trees, but that’s what I found myself doing last Sunday. It was all for a good cause – I was judging tree pits for my friend Naomi’s Chelsea Fringe street party.
Lots of tree pits (the soil around the base of trees) near Naomi’s road in Finsbury Park are now planted up by local residents, and it makes a real difference to the area. Judging them was tough. In the end I gave third prize to Tricia, who has planted two pits with cosmos, poppies, foxgloves, lemon balm, cornflowers and scabious. Second prize went to Nicola, who has planted sweet peas up a wigwam that’s adorned with dreamcatchers and feathers. And first prize went to Eugenie, because her pit was the most showstopping. Apparently the planting changes throughout the year; here it’s filled with snapdragons, foxgloves, cabbages and nicotiana.
You can read more about Naomi’s party here.