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Islington & Shoreditch Housing Association (ISHA) 102 Blackstock Road London N4 2DR
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Welcome to Islington and Shoreditch Housing Association
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Thank you to everyone who entered our ISHA in Bloom competition. It was fantastic to see so many lovely photos of your gardens, potted plants, and flowers.
It was also clear how much thought, love, care, and skill you’ve put into cultivating your little corners of greenery and biodiversity. Whether it was a hanging basket, a well-cultivated container garden, or a larger communal space used by you and your neighbours, our residents are talented and green-fingered.
Here are the four winners of the competition. Each of them wins a £50 Love2Shop voucher.
Joy and Michael, who share a communal garden at Shoreditch Court, have truly inspired us with their tremendous efforts to cultivate a peaceful, pretty and multicultural space.
Michael led the overall design for the garden; he used his creative eye and background in theatre design to plan the layout so that it has symmetry and flow. Michael explained that the garden leads you to the different areas and encourages residents to take seats in either the communal pergola area or to have individual time to relax and reflect further into the garden.
Joy and Michael worked in partnership to plan the placement of plants and furniture, integrating the residents' various cultures and ethnic backgrounds into the garden. Everywhere you look, there are symbols from the different nationalities and cultures of residents who live at Shoreditch Court.
Joy is very active in planting and maintaining the different plants and flowers. Sustainability and eco-friendly practices are important to Joy. She feels at one with nature and often writes poetry and songs while sitting in the garden.
Michael finds clever and ingenious ways to repurpose things that otherwise might have been thrown away, including using old plastic bottles to protect seedlings and sourcing waste wood from the local Queen’s estate.
Lucy and Amanda are neighbours. Although they both have separate front gardens, they often help each other with pruning, watering, or other gardening tasks.
Like Joy and Michael, their gardens are designed with sustainability in mind, and they have reused and repurposed everyday household items. Lucy’s partner Robin is a carpenter by trade and has used his skills to to repurpose old wood materials to create wooden benches and planters. He also created a miniature greenhouse from an old shower screen that holds succulent plants, mini cacti, and ornaments.
In addition to looking visually striking, the plants Lucy and Amanda chose attract various insects, including bees and butterflies They also work well to absorb heat from the sun and provide shade for their properties.
Polly’s garden makes use of the available outside space and includes large plants at ground level and a decorative shingle border (that also helps stop weeds from coming through). There is extensive greenery with large-leaved plants as well as some smaller potted plants in decorative containers. Many of her plants are now well established with the taller-growing plants encouraged to grow up the rear wall.
Congratulations again to all our winners.
We love hearing from our residents about how they make their homes more than just bricks and mortar. If you have an idea you want to share or want more people to get involved in local community projects, email involvement@isha.co.uk.
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