Rooted in the village: meet the garden club helping to bring Slamannan's new pocket park to life
Every other Thursday at five o'clock, a small group of people gathers in Slamannan Library. There's tea, there are biscuits, and - if someone has been baking - something a little more ambitious on the table. They talk about plants, swap cuttings, share advice and, increasingly, talk about what they want their village to look like.
The Slamannan Library Garden Club was founded in 2023 by John Bell, then the library assistant at Slamannan Library, and Caroline Marshall. It was the first gardening group to be established within the Falkirk libraries network. Today it has 12 members - and is growing. Its membership includes those from Scotland, England, the United States, Spain, Germany, South Africa and Iran, all connected by a shared love of gardening in the small village they call home.
When the conversation turned last autumn to Falkirk Council's plans for the new pocket park at Slamannan Cross, the group saw an opportunity. The park was welcome news - but could they do more than simply admire it? They wrote to the Council to ask whether they might design some of the planting themselves, with a focus on biodiversity: flowers that would bring in the bees, the butterflies and the birds. They got the answer they'd hoped for. Permission granted.
Negin Estekanchi, who leads the group, said:
We grow not only flowers, fruit and veg, but a community too.
And it's hard to think of a better summary of what the club is about. The group has designed the planting plan for two of the raised borders at the front of the park and will shortly be filling them with wildlife-friendly flowers - before taking on their long-term care in the years ahead.
The pocket park itself is the end point of a longer story. The site was occupied for decades by the former Royal Hotel, which had sat derelict and abandoned for more than 20 years before Falkirk Council acquired it in 2024 through the Ownerless Property Transfer Scheme and had it demolished. In its place: green space, seating, interpretation panels, and the hotel's original date stone set into the new surroundings, all delivered through the Council’s Regeneration Fund.
Lauren Weiss, who is leading on the group’s planting in the park, said:
We think the park, and the wider regeneration work, make a great first impression by providing a friendly and more welcoming environment, and the bright and colourful plants will invite people to spend time here. People are pretty excited and happy with the changes that have been made.
The garden club's ambitions don't stop at the park's edge. Members are already discussing planters for outside the local shops, a new community planting area elsewhere in the village, and plans to work with children at the local primary school - helping pupils sow and grow their own vegetables. Further down the line, the group is thinking about a community vegetable garden with a polytunnel and compost area, and regular community planting days where anyone can come and get their hands dirty.
Negin said:
The park provides an excellent opportunity for the community to get involved in the care of its green spaces – and we want to grow our plans, providing the community with ways to socialise and plant together. In taking care of plants, we're all taking care of each other. We're learning and growing together.
It's a sentiment that fits neatly with how the pocket park itself came to be - a space that started with a community being asked what it wanted and is now being jointly looked after by the people who live there and the Council.
The Slamannan Library Garden Club meets every other Thursday at 5pm in Slamannan Library. New members are welcome. For more information, visit the group’s Facebook page.