The making of a Future Garden

Meet Tim Ward from Circling the Square, the innovative artist who is creating eye catching sculptures of species that may become common in London gardens as a result of climate change. These species will all find a home in London Wildlife Trust’s Future Garden.

To fit in with the Trust’s sustainable theme, Tim’s sculptures are going to be made from a load of old rubbish! Reusing everything from drinks cans to washing machine drums, household waste is going to be transformed into colourful species like the golden oriole bird and the wasp spider.

Tim has spent the last few weeks trawling round London’s scrapyards in search of materials, as well as being helped out by Ethos Recycling Ltd, who are sponsoring the Future Garden. The environmentally friendly waste management company is in a great position to help source the items Tim needs to construct his works of art.

Take a look at the raw materials Tim has gathered so far and what he plans to do with them!

These old bicycle wheels will be transformed into a bike wheel bird feeder.

Washing machine drums will become seats!

Crushed drinking cans will be used to make the wings of the Camberwell beauty butterfly.

The work begins…

Tim has started making the artworks for London Wildlife Trust’s Future Garden. Take a behind the scenes peek at what he’s up to.

The garden will feature a yellow and black striped wasp spider, a species that may become common in our gardens as a result of climate change. After carefully studying pictures of the spider, and sourcing the materials he will use to create it, Tim got to work…

Tim had the ingenious idea of recycling old bits of wiring and cabling and using them to create the spider’s distinctive bright stripes.

Tim's also working on the colourful Camberwell beauty butterfly.  He's using scrap aluminium sheet for the base structure, strips of recycled coke cans for the body, plastic bottle tops, wire cable, and smalti (coloured glass) to obtain the butterfly's true wing colour.

Work has also started on the spheres for the Future Garden’s climbing plant feature. Tim asked Circling the Square artist Kirti Patel (who is also a jewellery designer) to make the spheres. Here she is welding some copper wire for the feature, which will contain flowers and plants when positioned in the garden. 

Here’s Tim with the climbing plant feature, as it takes shape. It’s made from plumbers pipe, balls of recycled copper and planting spheres.

Meanwhile, at London Wildlife Trust’s Centre for Wildlife Gardening in Peckham a van load of old pallets has arrived. They’re going to be used to make an innovative habitat wall that will be paradise for all kinds of bugs and wee beasties.

We’ve already started constructing the wall, which will be an important part of the finished garden. Over the next couple of weeks it will be stuffed with lots of interesting, natural materials that will provide hiding places for insects. Some of our wonderful volunteers are going to be lending a hand.

Want to find out more about volunteering for the Trust? Visit our volunteering pages.

Imagine a bird feeder made from old bicycle wheels… ours is now being made and it’s looking rather brilliant. Forget tyres and air, our bike wheels are full of delicious seed! Where better for a bird to perch for a snack than on gleaming, recycled spokes?

Here Tim’s daughter Charlotte gives the metal wheels a serious polish before they’re added to the frame.

The final product! After all Charlotte’s elbow grease, the bicycle wheel bird feeder is positively sparkling in the June sun.

Tick tock… There are two weeks to go and the diggers have arrived! We now have our plot at Hampton Court Palace, here it is just after the JCB finished marking it out.

And here's the Future Garden in its very early stages. The ellipses have already been plotted out, and you can see the habitat wall has been transported from the Centre for Wildlife Gardening to its new flower show home.

A group of wonderful London Wildlife Trust volunteers have been working very hard helping to construct the Future Garden over the last few days, and it’s really starting to take shape.  On the right our dedicated team construct the willow weave fencing.

While the striking striped wasp spider is hung from Tim’s sculptural climbing plant frame.

The textural habitat wall has been constructed from recycled timber pallets, and the volunteers have filled it with a mosaic of reused and recycled materials that will make attractive homes for a wide range of wildlife.

Those old washing machine drums have been transformed into magnificent seating!

What an earth can an old satellite be transformed into?  A bird bath of course!  Complete with Camberwell beauty butterfly.

Here's the garden, almost finished now!  Why don't you come and visit us at the flower show next week, it's open from July 8th until the 13th.

Final update - the garden has won a bronze medal and is proving really popular with show visitors!  Read more on our news pages.