If you’ve been part of the Planting Up community for a while, you may have noticed things have been quieter than usual for some time. No regular volunteer days at Westbury Arts Centre. Fewer events. No emails or social posts for months. A blog without any news since 2025.
Here’s an honest explanation…
What happened
Planting Up has always been driven by volunteers, and like any community project, it has been subject to the rhythms of life. Over the past couple of years, a combination of factors conspired to slow things down: a reduction in volunteer numbers as our core group naturally evolved and moved on to other things; health challenges for the person who founded and has largely led the project; and the garden at Westbury Arts Centre becoming increasingly established, which, counterintuitively, made volunteer days feel more like maintenance than the learning and growing experiences that drew people to us in the first place.
We have also been thinking hard about what community projects like ours need to be sustainable. The answer, we believe, is that they cannot rest on one person. They need to be genuinely shared to remain interesting and collaborative.
What we’re doing about it
We are reshaping Planting Up around a simple principle: every get-together should be worth showing up for on its own terms.
No sessions that are just weeding.
No events that only make sense if you have been coming for months.
Every gathering, whether it is a wellbeing walk, a mushroom growing workshop, a conservation activity morning, or a bring-and-share picnic in the garden, should be a standalone experience that leaves you with something: a skill, a connection, a new way of seeing your local environment.
We are also shifting how leadership works within the project.
Rather than one person organising everything, we want our community to take turns leading. One month, someone might lead a guided walk through Shenley Wood or do a wildlife count. The next, someone else might teach the group how to make kimchi or forage for elderflower. The person with the idea leads it and the group supports them in doing so.
This is sometimes called sociocracy – i.e. governance by consent rather than by hierarchy. We want to build it in from the start, not just hope it will emerge.
What stays the same
Our mission has not changed: we are here to encourage, educate and empower people to connect with the natural world, grow food, support wildlife, and build community for better mental health and wellbeing. That is as relevant now as it was when we started back in 2017.
Our garden projects continue. The Grapevine Wellbeing Hub in Coffee Hall remains active and is socially prescribed by local GPs as part of the Five Ways to Wellbeing. The Westbury Arts Centre forest garden, our founding site, is in the process of being tidied up with the help of some very welcome corporate volunteer days (more on those soon).
Our mailing list, our WhatsApp group, and our social channels are all still here. If anything, with help, we want to use them more!
What’s coming
We’re currently exploring how this new direction to the project can work. The plan is to set out a programme of events informed by what our community wants.
With food, learning, and community at the heart of what we do, we’ve had members suggesting things like mushroom workshops, wellbeing activities and foraging walks. We’ve even talked about rekindling some of our group trips out to local allotments, farms, and joining conservation events that connect us to green spaces.
As we share these details, we are looking forward to learning more about what our community would like to see and do.
If you have an idea for something you would like to lead or help organise, we want to hear from you. That is exactly the spirit we are trying to build!
A note of thanks
To everyone who has volunteered with us over the years, whether you came once or have been coming since the beginning: Thank you! The Westbury forest garden and Coffee Hall Wellbeing Hub exist because of you.
The connections made, the things learned, the lunches shared: really mattered.
This next chapter is built on all of that. 😊
We can’t wait to co-create and shape it with you. 💚
