Toby Hemenway’s Gaia’s Garden will be recorded in history as a milestone for gardeners and landscapers—a fusion of the practical and the visionary—using the natural intelligence of Earth’s symbiotic communities to strengthen and sustain ecosystems in which humans are a partner, not a competitor. An amazing achievement showing how we can and must live in harmony with nature!” The world didn’t come with an operating manual, so it’s a good thing that some wise people have from time to time written them. Gaia’s Garden is one of the more important, a book that will be absolutely necessary in the world ahead.” Primarily intended as a chillplace to hang outand relax, the garden also exists to teach visitors allaboutenvironmental causesthrough workshops, installations and performances. More than200 young Londonerswere involved in not just the building and gardening but also the curatingofGaia's live events programme. Photo: Francis Augusto Tell us what you did and how the project, event or installation enlivened the place in a creative way?

Permaculture gardens are no longer a thing of the future. They are here to stay and flourish. Gaia's Garden is enlightening and required reading for all people who desire to make their home's landscape healthy, sustainable, and healing." --Robert Kourik, author of Designing and Maintaining Your Edible Landscape--Naturally Well, a new oneis opening this week right in the middle of thecity. Throughout the summerGaia's Garden, located by Holborn Viaduct, is going tohost daily cultural, arts and sustainability workshops for the local community. Photo: Francis AugustoGaia’s Garden is simply the best permaculture book ever written, and is in the running for best gardening book ever written. No one should be without it.” Gaia’s Garden has sparked the imagination of home gardeners the world over by introducing a simple message: working with nature, not against her, results in more beautiful, abundant, and forgiving gardens. Gaia’s Garden is a space for the community, by the community,' said Nate Agbetu, co-founder of Play Nice.'To educate us all about sustainable practices, while we dance, learn and engage with one another. It’s a project that lives to level up Londoners and supports Culture Mile’s plan for a more inclusive, innovative and sustainable future for the Square Mile.' Gaia’s Garden is the best-selling permaculture book in the world. The enlarged, updated 2nd edition is the winner of the 2011 Nautilus Gold Medal Award.

Nothing quite like a community space, is there? Everyone pitching in. Olderpeople mingling with the young. People walking around with spades. It's like a glimpse into a Utopian future where we all live on communes and there's no money or internet. We are experiencing a watershed moment, not only in terms of the reclaiming of public space for community engagement, but in the recognition that collective change must be built from collective engagement. This revised and updated edition also features a new chapter on urban permaculture, designed for people in cities and suburbs with limited growing space. Whatever size yard or garden you have to work with, you can apply basic permaculture principles to make it more diverse, more natural, more productive, and more beautiful. Best of all, once it’s established, an ecological garden will reduce or eliminate most of the work that’s needed to maintain the typical lawn and garden. Did the project make a positive social and environmental contribution? Please provide any evidence or data to support this.Permaculture gardens are no longer a thing of the future. They are here to stay and flourish. Gaia’s Garden is enlightening and required reading for all people who desire to make their home’s landscape healthy, sustainable, and healing.” Please share any data or figures that support your entry, for example increased footfall, happiness surveys, event attendance and/or observed changes in behaviour. Dominvs Group worked with Culture Mile and creative agency Play Nice to create ‘Gaia’s Garden, which also formed part of the Lord Mayor’s Culture and Commerce Taskforce’s ‘Enhancing the City’ initiative, which sought to fill repurposed commercial spaces across the City with carefully curated creative activity to animate the area and drive footfall. Dominvs Group also partnered with urban transformation charity Urban Growth to design the Garden, using an innovative, circular approach to materials use. Five young female creatives - Tina Wetshi, Ramzia Jawara, Eleanor Grace Hann, Ananya Parwar and Andrea Siso - led the concept behind Gaia’s Garden.