To inspire those who live in homes without gardens, Jason Williams worked with students to create balcony gardens for the Royal Horticultural Society urban show, held this month in Manchester, to demonstrate what can be done in a small space. Each garden cost £500 to create. He also created an example allotment with easy-to-tend plants, which a developer could easily put into a new-build block of flats.
Williams, who calls himself the cloud gardener, has become known for the lush plants he grew on the balcony of his Manchester flat. Unusually for a horticulturist who displays his work at flower shows, he does not have a garden of his own.
Williams is campaigning for developers and landlords to create spaces for tenants and leaseholders to grow plants, and says it should be part of their responsibility to give green space to the people who live in their developments.
“People are crying out for green space, especially now with this cost of living crisis,” he said. “Things are getting so, so difficult for so many people across our towns and cities and green spaces are a really, really great way of helping people with their wellbeing. And I think that if we can just encourage developers just to take that next step, I think that will really, really be impactful.”
Williams said he thought tenants should have a right to garden, and said he had seen examples of renters being banned from gardening.
“It’s really interesting because especially as a renter, you become even more powerless. People have reached out to me and said, actually, I started balcony gardening or I put some pots out around my terraced home. But the developer then said no, you can’t have those pots there because there’s a fire risk. And then all of a sudden, you get completely shut down,” Williams said.
Other tenants have also blocked people from gardening, he said. “I’ve had it where somebody said that they put out a nice seating area in their communal space, but actually, another resident complained to the building manager that they didn’t want people loitering because they could then look up into their apartment. And so what the building manager would do is, rather than having to try and negotiate that, is just flat out say no, take it down.”
New laws mean developers who create new builds have to create “biodiversity net gain”, which means having at least 10% more space for nature on the plot of land than there was before they built it.