Embedded Files
Interested in our activities? Please contact Karen at admin@growingredhill.co.uk
Please watch out for any event updates or cancellations on our website before travelling
Local collaborations
Our friends at Bell House Place from Millsted Care @Dayspace are helping with the gardening and watering and we greatly appreciate their support.
We welcome our tie-ins with Friends of Merstham Parks and Greens and Surrey Choices.
Latest news (pictured)
We're putting our annual meeting back until the end of July and so watch out for the new date in our programme below. Our Tuesday activities are on hold at present.
We had a lovely morning together with our friends at Bell House Place on 10 May. We tidied the planters at Merstham Station. It is a very dry spring and we already need to visit and water the planters regularly.
We also spruced up the community garden that we created at the side of the station last year. It is looking lovely with colourful spring flowers attracting pollinators and the summer plants are growing fast!
Wy not join in this summer? We would need to register you to work around the station and so please contact admin@growingredhill.co.uk
Regular and upcoming events are as follows:
Every two weeks on Thursday mornings, join in with Drummond and our group from Surrey Choices.
Please see our full programme below for all events. If you are interested in joining in, please contact Karen at admin@growingredhill.co.uk
For regular Growing Redhill updates, why not like us on Facebook facebook.com/GrowingRedhill
2025 Programme
January
Friday 31st January – Meeting at the Bund, opposite Brook Road open space playground, Malmstone Ave, Merstham, RH1 3NB. A volunteer morning with Friends and Merstham Parks and Greens, preparing new wildflower areas. 10am-1pm. Any problems call - 07913 148821.
February
Saturday 22nd February – Session with our partners Friends of Merstham Parks and Greens. For details contact Drum on 07913148821.
Tuesday 25th February – Committee meeting at 20.00 on Zoom.
March
Sunday 2nd March – Reigate Station Working Party. Working parties at Reigate and Merstham Train Station are for registered volunteers only, contact us about how to join in.
Tuesday 11th March – clearing and planting up the areas by Merstham Hub and looking after planters for Raven Housing with a group from Surrey Choices. Fortnightly sessions on Tuesdays.
PM – Creating a Bee Friendly Garden for Liz’s Bee Keeping Project - clearing and planting up the areas with a group from Surrey Choices. Weekly sessions on Tuesdays.
Saturday 29th March – Meeting of the East Surrey Horticultural Societies at Methodist Hall, Redhill. 10.30 to 12.30. [Please note the change of date]
Sunday 23rd March – Merstham Station. Working parties at Reigate and Merstham Train Station are for registered volunteers only, contact us about how to join in.
Sunday 23rd March – Visit St Katharine’s Garden and take photos, contact us about how to join in.
Tuesday 25th March – Planting up the areas by Merstham Hub and looking after planters for Raven Housing with a group from Surrey Choices. Fortnightly sessions on Tuesdays.
PM – Creating a Bee Friendly Garden for Liz’s Bee Keeping Project - clearing and planting up the areas with a group from Surrey Choices. Weekly sessions on Tuesdays.
New project – Wall House GP Surgery in Reigate. Working dates to be confirmed.
April
Tuesday 8th April – Maintaining the areas by Merstham Hub and the planters for Raven Housing with a group from Surrey Choices. Fortnightly sessions on Tuesdays.
PM – Creating a Bee Friendly Garden for LB’s Bee Keeping Project - maintaining the areas with a group from Surrey Choices. Weekly sessions on Tuesdays.
Sunday 13th April – Reigate Station Working Party. Working parties at Reigate and Merstham Train Station are for registered volunteers only, contact us about how to join in.
Tuesday 15th April PM – Creating a Bee Friendly Garden for Liz’s Bee Keeping Project - maintaining the areas with a group from Surrey Choices. Weekly sessions on Tuesdays.
Tuesday 15th April – Committee meeting at 20.00 on Zoom.
CANCELLED Tuesday 22nd April – maintaining the areas by Merstham Hub and the planters for Raven Housing with a group from Surrey Choices. Fortnightly sessions on Tuesdays.
PM – Creating a Bee Friendly Garden for Liz’s Bee Keeping Project - maintaining the areas with a group from Surrey Choices. Weekly sessions on Tuesdays.
Sunday 27th April – Merstham Station. Working parties at Merstham and Reigate Train Station are for registered volunteers only, contact us for how to join in.
Tuesday 29th April PM – Creating a Bee Friendly Garden for Liz’s Bee Keeping Project - maintaining the areas with a group from Surrey Choices. Weekly sessions on Tuesdays.
May
Offer date for Merstham Brownies – fun growing activity. At Canada Hall, Merstham.
Sunday 4th May – Reigate Station. Working parties at Merstham and Reigate Train Station are for registered volunteers only, contact us for how to join in.
Tuesday 6th May – Maintaining the areas by Merstham Hub and the planters for Raven Housing with a group from Surrey Choices. Fortnightly sessions on Tuesdays.
PM – Creating a Bee Friendly Garden for Liz’s Bee Keeping Project - clearing and planting up the areas with a group from Surrey Choices. Weekly sessions on Tuesdays.
Tuesday 13th May PM – Creating a Bee Friendly Garden for Liz’s Bee Keeping Project - maintaining and planting up the areas with a group from Surrey Choices. Weekly sessions on Tuesdays.
Tuesday 20th May – Maintaining the areas by Merstham Hub and planting summer bedding in the planters for Raven Housing with a group from Surrey Choices. Fortnightly sessions on Tuesdays.
PM – Creating a Bee Friendly Garden for Liz’s Bee Keeping Project - maintaining the areas with a group from Surrey Choices. Weekly sessions on Tuesdays.
Sunday 25th May - Merstham Station. Working parties at Merstham and Reigate Train Station are for registered volunteers only, contact us for how to join in.
Tuesday PM – Creating a Bee Friendly Garden for Liz’s Bee Keeping Project – maintaining the areas with a group from Surrey Choices. Weekly sessions on Tuesdays.
Dates for “Growing on The Windowsill” for Reigate & Banstead Borough Council’s Food Clubs. Dates to be confirmed.
June
Sunday 1st June – Reigate Station working party. Working parties at Merstham and Reigate Train Station are for registered volunteers only, contact us for how to join in.
Tuesday 3rd June – maintaining the areas by Merstham Hub and looking after planters for Raven Housing with a group from Surrey Choices. Fortnightly sessions on Tuesdays.
PM – Creating a Bee Friendly Garden for Liz’s Bee Keeping Project - maintaining the areas with a group from Surrey Choices. Weekly sessions on Tuesdays.
Tuesday 3rd June – Committee meeting at 20.00 on Zoom.
Tuesday 10th June PM – Creating a Bee Friendly Garden for Liz’s Bee Keeping Project – maintaining the areas with a group from Surrey Choices. Weekly sessions on Tuesdays.
Wednesday 11th June - Brownies to do a "Growing Veg on the Windowsill" session. Closed session.
Sunday 22nd June - Merstham Station. Working parties at Merstham and Reigate Train Station are for registered volunteers only, contact us for how to join in.
POSTPONED Saturday 28th June – AGM with refreshments, at a venue to be confirmed.
**Please check again soon for the new date at the end of July**
July
Sunday 13th July – Reigate Station working party. Working parties at Merstham and Reigate Train Station are for registered volunteers only, contact us for how to join in.
Date to be confirmed – AGM with refreshments, at a venue to be confirmed.
Sunday 27th July – Merstham Station. Working parties at Merstham and Reigate Train Station are for registered volunteers only, contact us for how to join in.
Tuesday 29th July - Committee meeting at 20.00 on Zoom.
If we are watering during the week due to hot weather, we may not need the Sunday sessions booked in July or August as we will tidy the planters at the same time. Our friends from Millsted Care will water with us.
August
Sunday 3rd August – Reigate Station working party. Working parties at Merstham and Reigate Train Station are for registered volunteers only, contact us for how to join in.
Sunday 24th August – Merstham Station. Working parties at Merstham and Reigate Train Station are for registered volunteers only, contact us for how to join in.
Tuesday 26th August – Committee Meeting at 20.00 on Zoom.
September
7th September – Stall at quality Street Fair, where we will have our mini show again. Come along and enter your best flowers, pot plant, fruit or vegetables.
We will be sharing who we are, what we do, the work of our partners Friends of Merstham Parks and Greens and our work at Reigate & Merstham Stations.
Sunday 14th September – Reigate Station Working party for a general tidy up. Working parties at Merstham and Reigate Train Station are for registered volunteers only, contact us for how to join in.
Sunday 28th September – Merstham Station. Working parties at Merstham and Reigate Train Station are for registered volunteers only, contact us for how to join in.
While the weather is still hot and dry, we will be at the stations 2 or 3 times a week.
October
Thursday 9th October – Stall celebrating Mental Health Day at Merstham Hub. We will be sharing what we do, what Friends of Merstham Parks and Greens does, beekeeping and the benefits of gardening & working with nature. TBC
Saturday 11th October – Bulb Planting in Redhill Memorial Park, with Friends of Merstham Parks and Greens and Merstham Brownies.
Sunday 12th October – Reigate Station working party. Working parties at Merstham and Reigate Train Station are registered volunteers only, contact us for how to join in.
Tuesday 21st October – Committee meeting on Zoom.
Sunday 26th October – Merstham Station. Working parties at Merstham and Reigate Train Station are registered volunteers only, contact us for how to join in.
Wednesday 29th October – Bulb planting in a pot with the Brownies at Canada Hall. TBC
Date to be confirmed for tree and bulb planting with Friends of Merstham Parks and Greens in Merstham.
November
Sunday 2nd November – Reigate Station working party. Working parties at Merstham and Reigate Train Station are for registered volunteers only, contact us for how to join in.
Sunday 16th November – Merstham Station working party. Working parties at Merstham and Reigate Train Station are for registered volunteers only, contact us for how to join in.
December
Tuesday 1st December – Committee meeting on Zoom.
Date to be confirmed. Members Christmas get together.
Your station Your community Improvement project update
Our Your Station, Your Community Improvement project to transform an unloved area of Merstham Station is nearly completed. There is still the installation of artwork to go. We continue to improve the surrounding areas, including a new tie-in with Surrey Choices at Merstham Hub.
With the help of residents and staff from Bell House Place in Merstham, corporate volunteers and staff at East Surrey College, we've created this new garden for everyone to enjoy in a neglected area of the station. This includes insect hotels and pollinator-friendly plants.
During the project there were free bike checks with Sustrans and Leeli Cycles and free adult cycle confidence sessions with Surrey County Council in Merstham Station car park. If you are interested in future training events in the local area please book at https://surreycycletraining.online/public/public_training/#public
These activities were supported by the GTR/ Southern Railway Your Station, Your Community Improvement Fund.
New beginnings
Growing Redhill is your community gardening group that's active in Redhill, Reigate and Merstham.
After saying farewell to our Chair of 15 years at our 2024 AGM, we are actively recruiting a new Co-ordinator to inspire and lead the group in its next phase. Find out more here
It would be really good to know the group will be led into the future by a new person with energy and ideas. The group has funds and plenty of local support. Here’s some quotes we've received at events:
"Thank you for what you do."
"Merstham looks stunning compared to other stations...I think it looks amazing."
We also urgently need volunteer gardeners for our local projects. You will be among friends and we provide tools and advice.
Do you want to benefit from more fresh air, light exercise and helping wildlife?
Find out more about this opportunity here
Do you like the new 'no mow' areas in
Memorial Park, Redhill?
Growing Redhill is working with Reigate & Banstead Borough Council Greenspaces Team to improve your park. This includes bulb planting and 'no mow' areas.
If you want to join in more activities in the park contact
admin@growingredhill.co.uk
Why not become a member of Growing Redhill as a member for only £5.00 per year?
Email admin@growingredhill.co.uk or call 07717 678968.
Want to try something new and enjoy the outdoors?
Then volunteer with us. Watch out for volunteering opportunities with us on the VARB website:
We have plenty of opportunities for teams or groups that would benefit from an outdoor activity. Gloves and tools will be provided. Contact admin@growingredhill.co.uk
Our bulb planting in Memorial Park reminds us year on year of our fantastic volunteers!
Station improvements
Have you seen our ‘shop windows’ of planting on Merstham and Reigate Stations? We receive a lot of positive feedback from station users. Refreshing the planters is for Growing Redhill members only. If you are a member and want to join in, for safety reasons please let us know well in advance and you will need to provide photograph identification.
We thank the Govia Thameslink Railway team, Community Rail Partnership and station staff for all their support.
If you have ideas on how we might make the station areas better, then please let us know admin@growingredhill.co.uk
A splash of new colour at Reigate Station
Growing Redhill supports the SES Water Every Drop Counts campaign
In October 2020, we were delighted to receive a grant from SES Water for £1,000 for a new water-saving project.
Over coming months, we'll create a demonstration area on Batts Hill allotments on the Redhill - Reigate border.
Through demonstrating rainwater harvesting and saving, allotmenteers will gain confidence in applying measures to their own plots.
Growing Redhill will also spread the education wider through our community gardening projects.
SES Water is a local company supplying areas of east Surrey, parts of West Sussex, west Kent and south London and is proud to have served these communities for over 150 years.
Water is the most precious resource, yet we tend to take it for granted. To avoid future water shortages, we need a major culture shift in how we value water. This is especially true when it comes to water usage in allotments.
That’s why, as part of its Every Drop Counts campaign, SES Water is making available a community fund for allotments in its supply area to apply for a donation to help improve their water efficiency e.g. by installing water butts, providing more watering cans over hose pipe usage or even fixing leaking taps or pipes.
Find out more here https://seswater.co.uk/ and visit the Our Community page if you want to apply for funding.
Contact
Karen Murray, Secretary
Growing Redhill
Email: admin@growingredhill.co.uk
15 years of Growing Redhill
It is not widely known that Growing Redhill has completed 15 years of community gardening.
We have always been a modest group in size, evolving over the years according to what local people need. Nowadays, we make donations and give start-up advice to local groups wanting to ‘grow their own’. This is especially when they would not otherwise be able to afford it.
Our early activities included some food growing and building a stag beetle loggery on land in Merstham. We were part of a wider group called Sustainable Redhill. Then:
· In November 2008, Growing Redhill really took off. We had a donation of tools from Fiskar's Orange Thumb community initiative. We started to help local people to 'grow their own' through a formal Landshare Agreement on land in Merstham and worked more in partnership with local organisations.
· At the beginning of 2011, we relaunched our website at www.growingredhill.co.uk.
· In 2011, we worked with Merstham Station’s owners to install large flower planters at Merstham Station and we have run them ever since. Commuters and other travellers have enjoyed everything from traditional English herbs to tropical banana plants. Following a break in 2018, while we became a formal station partner, we are back with a colourful splash!
· By 2013, we had up to 20 plots occupied by local residents as well as bee hives on the half-acre growing site in Merstham, Surrey, with kind permission of the landowner.
· Over time, our novice growers fledged onto proper allotment plots – or else took their new found skills to new areas with growing families. We chose to return the site to the landowner in 2014.
· Since 2010, we’ve held five ‘Free Fruit Days’ at which we’ve redistributed up to 400kg home grown fruit in a day on Reigate High Street. Our members have also been out and about year on year, picking unwanted local fruit – some of which went to the Merstham Loveworks food bank in 2017.
· In 2013, we were given £2,000 by a benefactor. We started to spend the grant and got a gardening project off the ground at Warwick School, Redhill with installation of large raised planters and a lunchtime gardening club.
· Since 2014, we’ve worked together with Reigate and Banstead Borough Council in Memorial Park, Redhill. Once the park was re-opened, we helped to plant up the new sensory garden. Since then, we’ve planted hundreds of daffodil bulbs that now create a colourful splash every spring. Lately, we've created new 'no-mow' areas.
· In 2015, we won a Mayor of Reigate and Banstead’s Volunteer Team of the Year Award.
· From 2016, we worked annually with The Challenge and young people on the National Citizenship Scheme to give them an opportunity to grow life skills. Here’s a message from Team Reiss who we worked with in Summer 2018:
"It is becoming more and more evident within society today that not enough people are going outside. This reveals a gateway into a grim future for the next generations as well as the current. Physical illness, mental illness and a fragmented society. Help us campaign for a better, brighter, greener future."
· In March 2019, we convened East Surrey horticultural societies for the first time.
· During the Covid 19 pandemic, we kept up outdoor gardening activities when Government rules and GTR permitted it. We were awarded £1,000 by SES Water for an allotment water-saving project.
· In 2022, we provided pop-up grow your own for Merstham Brownies and Redhill Food Club and won a Mayor of Reigate and Banstead’s Volunteer Team of the Year Award.
· In 2023 we convened East Surrey Horticultural Societies again, aided by a grant from Cllr Jonathan Essex. We started gardening on Reigate Station together with Loveworks, Reigate.
Planting up wellies with fragrant herbs
National Citizenship Scheme - takeover!
The NCS Perham Team took over from 19-26 August 2017! Nine young people from as far afield as Croydon and Nutfield planned a sponsorship day, a volunteering day and campaign day. They raised over £230 for Growing Redhill's community projects. You can use the 'Donate online' link at the bottom of this page to give whatever you can.
Space to grow project
We want to help more people in Redhill and the surrounding area to 'grow their own'. Do you know someone who cannot afford to grow? Or would your group benefit from our support? Contact admin@growingredhill.co.uk
Membership and benefits
As a member of Growing Redhill, you will have access to unique opportunities for growing locally, meeting like-minded people and passing your gardening skills to others. Please contact us if you are interested in becoming a member.
Contact admin@growingredhill.co.uk.
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