Published: 1 June, 2012
by KHALEDA RAHMAN

THIEVES with a taste for herbs raided one of the first “pop-up” gardens planted in Mildmay earlier this year.

Nine pop-up gardens were planted by residents as part of the Chelsea Flower Show Fringe Festival and to spruce up the area in time for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

But pub owner Kirsty Valentine, 44, who runs the Alma, was aghast to wake up and find the hard work of groups – including the Newington Green Traders Association, Mildmay Community Partnership, Newington Green Action Group, the Mayville Gardening Club and the De Beauvoir Gardeners – had been undone by thieves.

While Kirsty’s crops were intact, others had vanished, including one outside the Mother Earth shop.

Nicola Freshwater, who chairs King Henry’s Walk Garden and who is leading the project, said: “It seems that our local thieves are keen cooks! Shame they don’t have any community spirit, though.”

Now the group responsible for the gardens have appealed to the local community to rescue the pop-ups by planting spare herbs and flowers from their own gardens.

Kirsty’s mother Di, 73, got to work immediately: “We wanted to make  the area look prettier and make Newington Green stand out from the crowd,” she said.