{"id":9283,"date":"2022-04-07T11:09:07","date_gmt":"2022-04-07T09:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gardensillustrated.com\/?p=77235"},"modified":"2022-04-07T11:25:24","modified_gmt":"2022-04-07T09:25:24","slug":"karen-liebreich-on-chiswick-flower-market-fruit-gluts-and-never-taking-no-for-an-answer","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/rss_feed\/karen-liebreich-on-chiswick-flower-market-fruit-gluts-and-never-taking-no-for-an-answer\/","title":{"rendered":"Karen Liebreich on Chiswick Flower Market, fruit gluts, and never taking \u2018no\u2019 for an answer"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Natasha Goodfellow\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Thursday, 07 April 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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If you\u2019ve ever been to Chiswick, west London, and have been stopped in your tracks by a lovely pocket park, or the sight of verbena swaying in a tree pit, there\u2019s a good chance that Karen Liebreich will be behind it. Not literally \u2013 though she is frequently to be found weeding, picking cigarette butts out of flower beds (a particular bug bear) or supervising contractors installing some of her more complicated projects. Without Karen\u2019s drive and tenacity, this city corner would be a more dreary place.<\/p>\n

A life-long Londoner, Karen\u2019s first horticultural intervention came when a neighbour coolly annexed a patch of unloved land at the end of the road where she lived as a teenager. Her father promptly removed the newly erected fence and Karen and her brother gardened the plot for the next few years, formalising a cut-through into a path, and planting daffodils<\/a>, herbs and donated plants<\/a>. \u201cIt was the unfairness of it,\u201d she says. \u201cThe idea that this guy, a local political bigwig, just thought he could appropriate it. It was common land, it belonged to us all, and by doing something as simple as planting a few bulbs, we made it a joy for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

By planting a few bulbs, we made it a joy for everyone <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>

Beautifying un- or under-used bits of land for the common good is now how Karen spends most of her time, but it wasn\u2019t always thus. Having received her doctorate in History at Cambridge, she worked as a cultural attach\u00e9 at the French Institute before moving on to make documentaries for the BBC and other production companies. She then launched and subsequently sold her publishing business, The Baby Directory, and, through it all, has written books, including the highly acclaimed Fallen Order<\/em>, an expos\u00e9 of 17th-century paedophile priests.<\/p>\n

So thoughts of horticultural activism were far from her mind when, one day in 2005, she took her dog for a walk around Chiswick House. Chatting to some workmen, she discovered that the historic walled garden there was soon to be turned into a car park. She was outraged and, having galvanised the local community, set up a charity and spearheaded an often bitter but ultimately triumphant campaign to save it. \u201cTo have a beautiful walled garden dating to 1682 in London at a time of increasing childhood obesity and the biodiversity crisis, and to see it only as a car park for those attending corporate events \u2013 that\u2019s a catastrophic failure of imagination,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

To have a beautiful walled garden dating back to 1682 in London and to see it only as a car park for those attending corporate events – that’s a catastrophic failure of imagination <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>

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Since then she\u2019s been involved in countless horticultural projects, including Abundance London \u2013 a charitable organisation she set up with local resident Sarah Cruz, which harvests fruit gluts, and plants and maintains the aforementioned pocket parks (around 15 at the last count) \u2013 and was a founder member of the Chelsea Fringe<\/a>. In 2013, she was awarded an MBE for services to horticulture and education in west London, and in 2016 she designed and created the Salopian garden, a community garden in Isleworth for Cultivate London. Most recently, she was one of the driving forces behind Chiswick Flower Market, London\u2019s first new flower market for 150 years.<\/p>\n

Her motivation is primarily environmental and she feels it viscerally \u2013 particularly since she has seen first-hand through Abundance London that the apple harvest in Chiswick is now a full month earlier than it used to be. \u201cWe all worry about the climate and the increasing disconnect with nature and I just want to do something that\u2019s effective, if only on a minuscule scale,\u201d she says, modestly.<\/p>\n

Her motto of sorts is \u2018small, defiant acts of beauty\u2019, a phrase with which she signs off some of her project missives, and she\u2019s keen that more of us engage in them. \u201cUrban environments are often harsh and ugly, but if you can create a little patch of bee-friendly plants where rubbish used to collect, then you\u2019ve achieved something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just don\u2019t expect it to be easy, Karen warns. While a flower market or a bed of perennials<\/a> might look beautiful, the underlying reality, even for the simplest intervention, is often months of liaison with the council and other organisations, mountains of paperwork and, sadly, online personal abuse by those opposed to the changes. And even once it\u2019s built, the problems don\u2019t stop. \u201cOur patches get strimmed, dogs use them, people throw their beer bottles in,\u201d she says. \u201cIt can be depressing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seeing the gardens alive with bees makes me think I’m doing my bit for the planet we’re so mercilessly trashing <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>

Despite it all, she\u2019s adamant it\u2019s worth it.\u00a0 \u201cMost of the time, these projects are fun. It\u2019s fun to work communally with others and many people locally have got a lot in terms of physical and mental health and sociability out of the projects that I\u2019ve started and which they themselves have then put huge amounts of effort into.\u201d Then there are the environmental benefits: \u201cSeeing the gardens alive with bees, butterflies and grasshoppers makes me think I\u2019m doing my bit for the planet we are so mercilessly trashing.\u201d And finally, there\u2019s the pleasure that it gives, both to her and to others. \u201cSomeone came up to us while we were weeding and said, \u2018are you the people who put joy in my heart every time I come past here?\u2019 That made us feel pretty good.\u201d<\/p>\n

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