A roundabout tale

I love this inspirational story - and the ability to use the word 'inspirational' without referring to Paralympians. The prolific and wonderful blogger who runs Spitalfields Life posted this gorgeous image of a late summer garden.

Nice - but so what? Lots of people have slightly unruly but charming collections of flowers at this time of year. What makes this special is the context:

This 'garden' is in the middle of a roundabout in Hackney, east London. According to Spitalfields Life, the woman who gardens it started doing so on her own initiative 10 years ago, before the advent of the guerilla gardening movement, because she was so depressed by the state of the roundabout. Later she came to an accommodation with Hackney Council which means that her work is officially sanctioned.

She still has to find a gap in the traffic to dash across with extracted weeds - not your typical health and safety approach. 

Best of all, there is an annual lavender harvest, with which locals help. The gardener then makes lavender bags and sells them to fund the purchase of new plants.

This is not only an inspiring story, but a great example of the way that interventions by dedicated individuals can help make our cities better places.