In 2011 the National Garden Scheme set up a grant scheme in memory of Elspeth Thompson, the much-loved garden writer and journalist who died in 2010. Elspeth was a great friend and supporter of the National Garden Scheme; she also wrote an admired ‘Urban Gardener’ column in the Sunday Telegraph. Her column often celebrated community gardens and so the grants support gardening projects carried out within local communities all over England and Wales.
Previously managed in partnership with the Royal Horticultural Society, from 2019 the scheme became wholly managed by the National Garden Scheme.
Applications for 2025 are now closed
The 2025 Community Garden Grants scheme are now closed. All applications will be assessed on their merits and the successful groups will be notified in early April 2025.
Application guidelines can be found here.
Each year the National Garden Scheme announces grants for community garden projects.
To mark Community Gardens Week in 2025 (7-14 April) the National Garden Scheme was delighted to announce the distribution of £294,260 of funding to 117 community garden projects across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
For a map of Community Garden Grant projects since 2019 open the map below and click on the pins to find out more…
WHISH is a small, parent led charity supporting over 150 children and young people in the Whitby & Esk Valley rural area who have a disability or hidden impairment. Their Community Garden Grant has helped transform the garden, encouraging children and families to grow and cook food, and become a haven for those families who do not have an outside space of their own.
In 2024 The Fathom Trust received a National Garden Scheme Community Garden Grant to create an apothecary garden so they could expand upon the social and therapeutic gardening activities already taking place at their hub in the Brecon Beacons.
A derelict patch of land behind a library in Leicestershire is now bursting with life with a vegetable patch full of produce, a berry patch and a wildflower corridor full of native wildflowers.
For The Gateway Community Garden in Reigate, Surrey receiving a Community Garden Grant from the National Garden Scheme has helped them with the next chapter of their development.
St Peters Community Wellbeing Projects in Bethnal Green, London works to support local elderly and/or vulnerable BAME women through participation in community gardening activities.
Ponthafren applied for a Community Garden Grant to bring the garden back to its former glory after it fell into disrepair during Covid 19.
Killicomaine residents used a Community Garden Grant to create a safe and welcoming community space & outdoor kitchen.
Homerton University Hospital applied for a Community Garden Grant to create a green hub for patients, staff and the community.
In January 2021 Festival Stoke took on plot 33 at Richmond Street Allotments in the heart of Stoke town allowing them to continue to develop the Greening Stoke project into a health and wellbeing project with a creative gardening twist
For stories about some of our previously supported projects click on the squares below
£500,000
£450,000
£450,000
£450,000
£350,000
£350,000
£122,227
£90,000
£80,000
£25,000
£302,000
£232,000
