Craigieburn Community Garden

This blog is written by Kate Fromings, a volunteer with Craigieburn Community Garden in Carbrain. Corra works alongside the community in Carbrain through the People in Place programme.

The community garden is located close to the town centre. It is comprised of two “squares” which were originally green spaces designed by the Cumbernauld Development Corporation for a playpark (Stonylee Square) and a communal garden space (Craigieburn). Both are connected by several footpaths and form Craigieburn Community Garden.

In January 2022 I had been living in Carbrain for almost 10 years, and specifically in Craigieburn for six. My whole reason for buying a house here was the ‘parky bit’ by my front door. Little did I know that I would eventually be responsible for its upkeep!

One cold grey morning in January I awoke to the sound of chainsaws and shouting outside my house. The crew from the council had come into the green space to ‘maintain’ the sparse shrubs and some of the smaller trees. By this, they meant using chainsaws on anything and everything down to the ground. Randomly hacking off branches of trees, and even using chainsaws and flails on my tiny fragile fuchsias and hydrangeas which were barely a foot tall.

I watched this carnage and the anger rose in me. I realised that (although I had never seen anybody using the green space) I couldn’t let the garden get ‘destroyed’. On closer inspection, I could see that all of the shrubs had previous similar damage where the landscaping team came in once a year, levelled everything, then came back and did the same again the next year. None of the smaller shrubs were healthy, only the trees seemed to survive this annual onslaught.

As a keen gardener I vowed that I would make the border in front of my house into a mini ‘community garden’. The next day I cleared all the debris from the bed and did a litter pick. Then I did an inventory of what was there… basically nothing. A few jaggy Berberis bushes and a few mature azaleas which had grown into trees.

Then I spent the week going out every day, digging up the dead shrubs and turning over the soil. One of the mornings a neighbour saw me. She ran out in her dressing gown to give me some honesty plants she had grown. I explained that I wanted this to be a community garden, and she started to join me daily. Then, another neighbour asked what I was doing… once again I explained this was going to be a small garden for everyone…. she asked to join in too, as did her neighbour.

In all my years of living in Craigieburn I had never met them, I only knew one or two people to say hello to in passing. These ladies were Paula and Anne-Marie; who are now the core members of the volunteer team. In that first year we had fantastic weather, this enabled all the interested households to come outside many times per week. I was able to share my knowledge (previously I’d worked on allotments and my own garden), most importantly, the residents asked questions and researched information about gardening. This showed engagement.

At this time our Facebook page exploded with popularity; many people throughout Cumbernauld began donating plants and equipment to us. A Carbrain resident who worked at Tesco Extra was able to save plants from the skip at the end of her shift, and these were donated weekly. As the months moved on, we had around 11 households interested and actively taking part in weeding, vegetable growing and hard landscaping.

It seemed that every week something new would drive the positivity further; this included expanding to Stonylee Square which we plan to make into a Native Nature Hub. The square is paved and wheelchair accessible, it is also full of mature fruit trees and even a blue cedar which towers higher than the houses. There are corvids nesting in the areas and toadstools pop up in the Autumn. Paula is on the parent council for a local primary school, and when discussing the educational benefits of the square she also put forward that Craigieburn could help with the neglected school garden.

Over the final months of 2022 Paula and Anne-Marie were able to set up a weekly gardening group in the school garden, facilitated by one of the teachers who also has a passion for horticulture. Eventually we aim to have both local primary schools take trips to the native nature hub and learn about mini beasts, Scottish wildlife and find out that even in an urban setting nature is on your doorstep.

In early 2023 we were given permission to maintain both Craigieburn and Stonylee from the head of landscaping at North Lanarkshire Council. The only element we were not allowed to complete was the tree pruning. This meeting and tour of the area was part of a wider projected enabled by Cumbernauld Living Landscape and Carbrain & Hillcrest Community Council. We work closely with both organisations to learn best practices for looking after the community garden.

At this time, Paula and I met Shazia from Corra Foundation and she was able to secure funding for us. We have used some funding for equipment and installing raised vegetable beds in the growing space. The remaining funding is specifically for Stonylee Square to develop the native nature hub, installing informative signage such as tree name labels etc.

Through this investment we now have three new accessible raised beds for people with mobility issues to use, and we have been able to increase our harvest to benefit 15 families instead of five. Although my original goal was to develop one border, we all pitched in to clear and work with every single flower bed and planter within the square and slightly beyond! We were also donated a park bench which we call our ‘buddy bench’. Here anyone can sit down, and if you see someone is alone you can go and talk to them.

In 2022 and 2023 we took part in Keep Scotland Beautiful and It’s Your Neighbourhood competitions, scoring highly in both. Our participation assisted Cumbernauld to win ‘best small city’ two years running.

Although 2023 didn’t have the best weather, as a community group we still ensured that the children and families had access to a clean space. This was achieved through litter picking and monitoring dog fouling. Even during the wettest weeks the children were out in the ‘tunnel room’ areas playing with chalk or making jewellery. Once a week Paula and Anne-Marie run a mini group called ‘Wee Read Together’ where children bring out their own books and read to each other. This progressed into the group visiting Cumbernauld library and then coming back to the garden to read.