One of the exciting things about this podcasting journey is that it has brought me into contact with all kinds of clever and talented gardeners, in all kinds of interesting locations. This week I found myself at the Garden Museum in London at a Camden Highline event. Above are the postcards, placed on our seats. I have written before on this blog about the Camden Highline, a very exciting Inner London project to turn a disused railway viaduct into a new park, that as you can see from their postcards, will take people up into the sky, on an eye-line with roofs and chimneys but strolling through nature.

The evening, chaired by the Camden Highline CEO, Simon Pitkeathley, featured six speakers and the subject was brownfield sites and the opportunities they offer:

A brownfield site refers to previously developed land, which is or was occupied by a permanent structure. A greenfield site refers to ANY land that hasn't been previously developed. This could be ancient woodland, grassland, or agricultural land.

So as one of the speakers, Blanche Cameron, Environmental Design Lecturer at the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL put it: ‘cities are largely brownfield sites’. And how important are those sites because even in 1950 the population living in UK cities was 79% but its set to rise to 92.2% by 2030. Another of the speakers Jo Gibbons from J&L Gibbons talked about repurposing brownfield sites that had a sense of history, a use before which is ‘embedded in the soil. She talked about the Dalston Eastern Curve Garden that is now run on a social enterprise model. It has over 150,000 visitors a year! Then there was the wildlife that can thrive in these sites. John Little talked about how brownfield sites and man-made structures are really good for wildlife and yet these are: ‘the places we feel relaxed about destroying’. Rewilding is great if you have the space for it but we also need and want it in urban places too where the wildlife that return may be a little different. Another of the speakers, Benny Hawksbee, who I follow on Instagram works in a garden that 20 years ago was a wasteland. He reminded us how we may think of bees and honey but there’s just one honey bee, there are many many species of bees, which he finds, identifies and documents in his work. John Little also reminded us that just putting plants back into urban spaces isn’t enough, we need gardeners to maintain them and to help and encourage communities to own those spaces.

Then there are those big projects. Duncan Laird the National Trust’s Head of Urban talked about the Castlefield Viaduct in Manchester, a Victorian structure which had been derelict since 1969. Since they planted and developed the first part of the viaduct they have had 50,000 visitors. They have big plans for the future. James Corner, who’s the founder and CEO of James Corner Field Operations talked about his work, designing the New York Highline. He is the lead landscape designer on the Camden Highline and talked about the technical challenges of designing a garden in the sky. There is no soil on the Camden highline so it will need to be taken up in soil pockets but this too is an opportunity because there can be different substrates in each pocket.

I came away from this evening thinking how lucky we are that there are people who relish taking on the challenges of brownfield sites. Where some see only dereliction, these are people who see opportunity and potential to help nature reclaim sites and provide much needed green spaces in the middle of our cities where so many people who don’t have gardens.