Home and garden retailer Robert Dyas has recently joined the winners of their nationwide competition, Nominate Your Space, in their first community seed-sowing event of the year as part of the garden space’s successful transformation.
Once an unused garage site, the winning space – Day Drive Community Garden in Failsworth, Manchester – has been transformed into a food-producing community garden with the help of Robert Dyas‘s £2,500 worth of garden equipment. Prizes included a Forest Garden summerhouse, VegTrug planters and growhouse, and a variety of garden tools, to name a few.
Green Wellbeing
The initiative encouraged entries of spaces that could be transformed for the benefit of the community and formed part of the retailer’s Plant & Pause campaign, which champions gardening as a way to improve mental health, in partnership with gardening for health charity, Thrive.
The prizes have helped the volunteers at Day Drive grow more produce and turn the space into a calming social hub. This year they are not only growing crops to share amongst the 38 residents involved, but are looking to collaborate with various organisations and food banks to donate produce to the wider community. They are also looking to collaborate with a local forest school to encourage children to get involved in gardening.
The location of the site, Failsworth West in Oldham, is in the most deprived 20% of areas in England*.
Growing Impact
In 2024 the NHS St George’s Hospital in Tooting, London, won the Nominate Your Space competition in its debut, with the prizes helping to transform the dementia ward garden for the benefit of patients and staff.
Robert Dyas’ Marketing Manager, Donna Jackson, says: “It’s wonderful to know that local communities are benefitting from our competition. We’re delighted to have played a part in improving the wellbeing of people in multiple communities via gardening, which is why this year we’re not only running our competition again, but expanding it!”
Robert Dyas is running its Nominate Your Space competition for a third year, encouraging nominations of spaces that could be transformed for the benefit of the local community. Alongside this they are also launching a new ‘Best Rewilding Space’ competition, for areas that could be transformed to restore nature.
Community Roots
As part of the wider Plant & Pause campaign, the retailer is encouraging people to ‘#GrowYourOwnHappy’ as they join Robert Dyas in sowing pots of optimism.
Day Drive Community Garden’s lead volunteer, Asaf Efraim, was recently named as First Choice Homes’ ‘Hidden Hero’ for his community achievements. Day Drive has also featured on the BBC.
Since winning the competition in 2025, the team of volunteers at Day Drive has been gathering once a week for the opportunity to socialise and enjoy the therapeutic nature of gardening. They have planted a variety of different crops such as garlic, beetroot and strawberries, alongside introducing a hydroponic growing system, in which they are growing cauliflower. Their future plans include planting fruit trees and more annual crops to share among the community – all in pots and planters due to the presence of asbestos in the ground from the buildings that were razed on the site.
