Round Hill Green Spaces
from The Round Hill Reporter June 2020
As you’ve probably guessed, our plans have more or less come to a halt because of the coronavirus. We prepared an application for central government funding at the end of last year but couldn’t get it “rubber stamped” in time by Brighton and Hove council. We’ve raised £1000 from a trust + £1000 donation from the Roundhill Society and have funding applications ready to mail to various organisations. The chief exec of Brighton Buses has offered us a £1500 contribution to the bus stop project. So, with the help of our councillor Pete West, we hope to pick up where we left off at a later date.
In the meantime the charity which provided us with 150 native shrubs and very small trees for the project, agreed to us using them in other ways within the community. We’re happy to report that most of these have now been distributed and are making Round Hill a little greener. They’re small at the moment, but will be visible in front gardens and containers, in Roundhill Crescent, Richmond Road, Princes Road, Roundhill Road, Belton Road, Belton Close, Upper Lewes Road, Princes Crescent and d’Aubigny Road. Oh, and Rob Stephenson is hoping to plant one in the stump of the recently felled tree in Upper Lewes Road. Thank you to everyone who got involved and came along to collect plants. We should be able to get more next year.
And we do have a little bit more activity with our project. Huge thanks to local resident and furniture maker Karl Weitz who’s volunteered to give his time to make us a large planter to be sited at the junction of Richmond/Mayo Road – the site previously discussed, where cars somehow manage to cut through this no-entry road by using the pavement. We may be getting compost from Veolia – they agreed to this in those wonderful pre-virus days so we’re hoping they can still deliver. Shame we can’t have a community planting day, but when the planter’s in-situ we’ll plant up with shrubs saved from the above donation, and invite residents to be individually involved in donating or planting up other plants and bulbs. Have a look at Karl’s wonderful furniture at https://www.kwfurniture.co.uk.
You may have heard that one of our neighbours has moved on - Karen, the wonderful gardener who made 2 of the Roundhill Crescent planters so beautiful has relocated to a new home. Unless any other neighbours would like to continue her brilliant work, Green Spaces will include this site in our project in the future. We can’t wait to get out with the volunteer gardening crew to make Roundhill a little greener.
Jane Power and Dominic Furlong
Action under lockdown
from Action Under Lockdown from The Round Hill Reporter September 2020
Despite the pandemic delaying our more ambitious plans, we’ve installed a new planter at the junction of Richmond and Mayo Roads and begun refreshing the planters on Round Hill Crescent.
The “pandemic” planter was installed and planted- up, in a socially-distanced manner, on 12 June. The planter is designed to prevent cars cutting through the no-entry road by mounting the pavement. The photo shows the flowers and plants looking beautiful on a glorious summer’s day, with a laminated poster for the Brighton & Hove Mutual Aid community network. Round Hill resident and furniture maker, Karl Weitz, made the planter and very generously gave his time for free -- you can look at Karl’s beautiful bespoke furniture at https://www.kwfurniture.co.uk. The compost, also free, was sourced from Veolia’s Woodlands In-Vessel Composting Facility at Whitesmith, near Lewes, from kitchen and green garden waste. Most of the plants were bought with contributions from the Roundhill "Egg Club" members, but the planting will evolve over time and we'll add some bulbs during September/October. A short description of how the Round Hill “pandemic planter” came about, together with a photo of it looking its best, was submitted to the Royal Horticultural Society’s survey of community greening activities during lockdown. This seemed like a good opportunity to share what we have achieved during lockdown with a wider network. We'll let you know if anything comes of it.
We’ve also started refreshing the planters at the southern end of Round Hill Crescent. The existing plants and bulbs have been dug out to be re-used or re-homed, and the topsoil replaced with fresh compost from Veolia. New plants have been bought for one of the planters, again using contributions from the Roundhill "Egg Club", and will be planted once the heatwave subsides. Then we'll turn our attentions to the other planter. We've chosen plants that can cope with water shortage, but they'll need watering until established - to begin with, Kristian of Solitary Bee mobile coffee service has offered to help us by bringing a large container of water down to the site, but ongoing it would be great if some local residents could keep an eye on the water level, before we get going with our "gardening crew" post-pandemic.
Thanks so much to everyone who has helped, directly or indirectly.
Dominic Furlong and Jane Power
This page was last updated by Ted on 20-Apr-2026