Following peaceful paths in London

New to open for the National Garden Scheme in 2026 is OmVed Garden in North London. Gardener, Tejas Rawal, introduces us to a space where nature and diverse ways of thinking flourish.

Carved into a hillside in North London, a path trundles westward, winding its way along the contours of the land. It was the first path laid to mark an intention of care for the land that has become OmVed Gardens. Today, the hillside gardens are a place for people to explore how celebrating creativity, as it emerges in the acts of gardening, cooking, and making art, can encourage health, and ecological mindfulness.

In practice, the gardeners, chefs and artists who care for the land are regularly pushed toward thinking about just how entwined health and ecological mindfulness are. The question of how a place is made and cared for has led to the making of subsequent paths, branching from the first and, in the course of walking along these paths, visitors are invited to pause and think alongside the life of the land, as the seasons turn. The subsequent notes from the gardeners at OmVed Gardens, reflect on this question.

Winter
On grey winter days, when the trees appear bare, crossing the threshold from the cosiness of the indoors, into the brisk outdoors can feel like an uphill endeavour. Winter is indeed a time to reflect on the past year, and a time to plan for the year to come. Yet, at OmVed Gardens, we’re regularly reminded how enriching stepping outside can be for both reflecting and planning.

Even in the chill of February, our work in the gardens offers gifts. At the foot of the hillside, where our first laid path pools into a circle of shade beneath a Weeping Willow, there stands a copse of gleaming Silver Birch. Beneath the birches bare branches, out of the leaf litter, you begin to notice the silvery-green clusters of snowdrop leaves, each adorned with the porcelain white of snowdrop petals flecked with green stripes, so precise it is as though they’ve been painted on by unseen hands in the night. Noticing these gifts of late winter, is a reminder of not only our planting efforts the previous spring, but also a reminder that life in the garden never truly freezes; even in winter the garden is alive beneath our feet.

Spring
From the shade of the Weeping Willow, the path invites us into our kitchen gardens, where asparagus spears push through the protective mulch applied for winter, and a ring of apple blossom heralds the start of spring. Not to mention, the creak of wheelbarrow wheels and the chatter of our team of diligent volunteers, as they’re united with the gardens after their winter break during which they’ve busied themselves with processing and packing up saved seeds in our Seed Library, ready to be sent forth to gardeners across the country.

Passing through the kitchen gardens, you can see a yellow, dazzling against the pond water’s edge hidden behind the lime green buds of a hornbeam hedge, still holding brown leaves that have clung on through the winter. The yellow of the marsh marigold can seem like an intentional distraction drawing the eye away from what lays beneath it amongst the duckweed: milky clouds of frogspawn that seem to mimic the clouds above that are reflected on the waters’ surface in breaks amongst the duckweed. Pausing here, before leaving the frogs to get on with their spring revelry, is a reminder of just how interwoven life in the garden is.

Summer
From the pond’s edge, a path up the hillside reveals itself. Hidden behind The Barn – clad in warm red cedar wood – where our guests gather for meals prepared in our open kitchen. A wall of weathered metal catches the sun’s warmth and warms the cherries and elder berries that perch over this path. As you walk along it, a sun-kissed terrace at the back of the barn reveals itself. Pausing here, and looking down on to this terrace, you can see our citrus trees clad in terracotta, and if you inhale slowly, the heady scent of lemons and limes can be intoxicating; a reminder that even in the business of summer, pausing can bring luxuriant gifts.

Autumn
Continuing up the path, past our greenhouse and seed library – both clad in the same warm wood as the barn – you arrive at an outdoor amphitheatre, where soft grassy verges act as cushions.

From here, the breadth of OmVed Gardens and London beyond, can be taken in. Pumpkins, corn, and apples ready for harvest across the garden seem to give way to the warmth of reddened leaves in countless back gardens that seem to lead their way to the distant grandeur of Alexandra Palace atop another hillside in the distance. These autumn leaves catch in the breeze and scatter across the stage of the amphitheatre, ready to be gathered and returned to the soil in compost.

Spending time along these paths reminds how being outdoors – breathing, noticing and walking can support our health and wellbeing.

OmVed Gardens is open to visitors throughout the year and opens for the National Garden Scheme Open on Sunday 31 May – for details CLICK HERE