Wayward Plants is a London-based landscape practice -- an award-winning collective of designers, artists and urban growers. We create imaginative responses to derelict sites and meanwhile spaces that explore social exchange and botanical narratives.

In 2010, Wayward Plants was commissioned by the Architecture Foundation to design and build the Union Street Urban Orchard for the London Festival of Architecture. This pop-up project transformed a derelict site in Southwark into a thriving community orchard built from recycled materials by more than 100 volunteers. It hosted a festival of talks, workshops and events. After one fruit harvest some 85 fruit trees and countless wayward plants were distributed to housing estates and community spaces in the local area to seed new orchards and provide a lasting legacy for the festival. In 2011 the Architecture Foundation published The Union Street Urban Orchard: A case study of creative interim use, in which we shared our process to inspire others to grow‐their‐own.

Wayward Plants returned to Southwark the following year to create the Urban Physic Garden – a pop-up garden shaped by the hospital and pharmacy with a focus on medicinal plants and herbs that heal. The project brought together nearly 200 volunteers and hosted more than 100 events including community workshops alongside high‐profile performances and talks. Monocle Magazine featured the Urban Physic Garden in their profile of the “Best Urban Farming Projects.” In the same year the Urban Physic Garden was also shortlisted for RIBA’s Forgotten Spaces competition and included in Icon Magazine’s annual highlights. The garden is currently touring Thailand and Vietnam by invitation of the British Council and next year a new iteration of the Urban Physic Garden has been commissioned by The Wellcome Collection to be developed for the borough of Camden.

Wayward Plants takes a unique approach to landscape architecture through the creation of narrative environments. Our landscapes express stories that connect people through nature, creating vibrant places that are productive, meaningful and imaginative.