Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Community garden transformed by Blackness parent

Helena Woodcock has transformed a community garden near Blackness Primary School. Supplied

A Dundee parent has been left feeling “overwhelmed” with support after leading the transformation of a community garden.

Helena Woodcock, a parent at Blackness Primary, spent every spare moment for around a month on the “feelgood” project near the primary school.

Private gardener Helena said she approached the school to fix the garden after social distancing meant many people had been using the area as space to queue up.

She said: “The garden was maintained and managed by some of the residents in the nearby sheltered housing.

Community Garden
The garden opposite the school had been trampled on. Supplied

“But then came Covid and people just were struggling for places to line up. So the garden ended up as a lining up space and every one trod everything to the ground.

“It started to become a really horrible looking space. But it was a beautiful space that made me think, gardening has always been allowed during Covid times, and I love it so thought maybe we could do something with it.

“I asked Councillor Fraser MacPherson to find out who it belonged to and it turned out to belong to the school.

“So I asked the parent council if I could work on it and they said yes. And in four weeks time from the yes we’ve managed to pull through a pretty amazing garden.”

Working on the community garden

Helena took on the majority of the work by herself to prep the space and arrange plants.

She said: “I did a lot of preparation work – for the past three or four weeks I have been going there every free moment.

“I’d probably spent in total around 15 hours just prepping the site – cleaning it up, picking up litter, digging things out.

“And then on the day it took around six hours between eight people to do the garden.

“Just short of 200 plants have gone in there and we put planters and trellises up. The council was great as they gave us compost and the Dundee Botanic Garden people delivered it.

“The Strathmartine Hospital Project gave us over 100 plants and the rest were donations from friends and neighbours. I also work at Glamis Castle as a volunteer and they gave us gravel.

community garden
Work on the garden took four weeks to prepare. Supplied

“So for me, it was four weeks of pulling this all together. Then on Saturday everyone came out and helped me to finish it all.

“People have been absolutely wonderful and worked so tirelessly.

“It was absolutely uplifting to have such a nice project where everyone could involve themselves in such good spirits and enthusiasm. It was really great.”

She added: “I’ve been overwhelmed by the generosity of people and everyone has welcomed such a feelgood project.”