Village Volunteers Win the First RHS Railway Stations in Bloom Award for Cardross Station

A small railway station in a Scottish village has become one of the greenest in Britain, and now it has the trophy to prove it. The Cardross Community Organic Garden, a group of volunteers in the Scottish village of Cardross, has won the Royal Horticultural Society's (RHS) first-ever Railway Stations in Bloom award. The new competition celebrates volunteers who beautify station platforms while supporting local wildlife and coping with a changing climate.

The group adopted Cardross station in March 2022 and has been busy ever since. Volunteers have transformed the platforms, the car park and the embankments, adding new paving, more composting, fruit and ornamental trees, a new shed, living willow, dead-wood hedging, a wildflower meadow, log habitats and bird boxes. The station is also home to flowers, fruit and vegetables, and even a model train made from old whisky barrels.

"Since March 2022, every bit of the station that can be changed, has been changed," said Jane Connolly, who leads the group. Gardening by the shore is not easy, so the team chose hardy shrubs that can survive harsh winters and added windproofing on the shore side, with very few plants lost. The effort has made the station a destination in its own right: "People come to our station just to see our gardens," Connolly said.

For the RHS judges, the community spirit mattered as much as the planting. "The judges were especially impressed by how active the group was in including different members of the community in the station's activities, from schoolchildren and Brownies to other volunteering and gardening groups," the society said. The award is the group's third major recognition, after earlier success in ScotRail's community awards.

Cardross was chosen from a shortlist of five stations across Britain. The others were Alresford in Essex, where volunteers created a drought-resistant garden, as well as Maghull in Merseyside, Wylde Green in Birmingham and Keynsham in Somerset, recognised for their pollinator gardens, woodland areas and succulent displays. Together, they show how a few committed neighbours can turn everyday places into spaces that lift travellers' spirits and give nature a foothold.