Thanks to a generous donation of £25,000 from the Morris Charitable Trust we have been able return the Hazellville Road end of Sunnyside into a special family garden, which has been designed for those with small children to enjoy. The garden is able to be closed off from dogs and has a colourful child and wildlife friendly planting scheme that is designed to look good all year long. Sunnyside’s Friday Volunteers and Trustees have worked with Community Gardener Lorena Vila to create this special space for residents in Hillrise.

Local children approve of our new bench
Islington Mayor officially opened the garden for us
Volunteers worked every Friday for a year to make the garden
Plant deliveries were a busy time
It took a lot of time to get the soil ready for the plants
We had to improve the lawn too
We also made a new decking area
We had to work out where to put all the plants
Everyone was very curious about the trunk delivery
We had a lot of volunteer lunches to keep us going
Volunteers and the community gardener came up with a detailed planting plan
In December 2018 Alan started work on The Morris Family Garden
It is hard to remember what the garden was like before
The old fence was falling down
We tried out best to keep it nice
But some of it needed to be closed off because the ground was full of holes
The children knew to keep away from the fenced off area
And though the garden was well used, it was in desperate need of some time and money