Teddington nursery and preschool to open intergenerational community garden
By Tilly O'Brien 3rd Jun 2026
A nursery and preschool in Teddington is currently working on a new intergenerational community garden.
Students from all rooms at Bushy Tails Nursery and Pre-School are currently working with parents and volunteers to create the garden.
The nursery already has an allotment, which its Nursery Manager Emma says is "underutilised", so she wants to use this space for the new garden.
Thus far, a parent whose child attends Bushy Tails has built a greenhouse for the garden, while another built a wheelbarrow and the children have done some planting for the greenhouse.
The nursery has also been participating in weekly intergenerational sessions at the Elleray Centre and would love to get members of the centre involved in this initiative.
Emma said: "As we get older, we gain knowledge, skills and experience and that's why intergenerational contact is so important at LEYF, so adults can pass on these skills and knowledge to our children."
Emma says that the new garden is not just a project with an end goal, but a long lasting initiative.
She said: "We've only just started but we plan to start creating the beds and the children have already started planting for the green house."
Emma added that they also plan to have a teaching shed installed where the children can learn new skills and work together with volunteers to maintain the garden.
"We want to create a seed to plate system," she said.
As waiting lists for planning permissions for allotments are very long at the moment, Emma says "this might be a nice opportunity for anyone who wants to get involved in using our allotment".
Anyone can become a volunteer for Bushy Tails' intergenerational community garden, but as they will be working with young children, they will need to be DBS checked.
Speaking about the initiative, Emma told Nub News: "It brings the community and the nursery together, but also helps expand the knowledge that people have and skills they can share with the children.
"Obviously it is great that parents are helping, but because they have to work, we can't just rely on them, but there may be lots of people out there who would like to help. So, it's such a wonderful initiative in terms of gardening and volunteering."
She continued: "The volunteer aspect will really help with people's mental health as it gets them out and about. Especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, there is lots of research out there suggesting that being outdoors can boost people's mental health.
"As we are in a conservation area, this initiative is about giving back to the community and teaching our chidlren about the future - we're working within the United Nations' 2030 sustainable development goals.
"We're looking at it from the environmental side and creating a circular economy. It could be that we end up making food that can be donated to food banks.
"So the long-term goal is creating a really sustainable working circular economy garden as well as supporting people's mental health."
Bushy Tails Nursery and Pre-School is part of the London Early Years Foundation (LEYF) nursery chain and Emma is currently studying a degree under the London Institution of Early Years.
She says she is taking a module in sustainability as part of her degree and that this module inspired her to start the intergenerational community garden initiative.
"Sustainability is something we're really passionate about at LEYF," she said.
Every LEYF nursery now has a Green Champion who has studied a crash course on sustainability.
Emma says that some of the children's parents have brought in seeds from home for the new garden, "which creates home learning too".
Bushy Tails is hoping that the garden's volunteers will start in September.
If you are interested in volunteering for the initiative, email the nursery at [email protected].
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