Polly Brannan + Aaron McKay

23 July 2025
6pm – 7:15pm
Roma Drom: Cliftonville Culture Centre

A pop-up planting workshop led by OSE’s Artistic Director Polly Brannan and Community Gardener Aaron McKay as part of OSE’s 2024-26 Civic Programme Home is where the garden is. 

The workshop took place with the English Language class at Roma Drom: Cliftonville Culture Centre, and served as a way to learn new vocabulary, practice speaking and share recipes and tips from across different cultures.

With Polly and Aaron, participants learnt how to take plant cuttings and shared their own gardening knowledge. They planted these in pots that they decorated with abstract images inspired by organic forms.

Recipes and foraging tips collected as part of this pop-up were brought together in our community cookbook Growing Wild – Foraging, Cooking and Pickling in Cliftonville West. The cookbook includes recipes from across the world that are connected to local families. The cookbook was translated into Slovakian and Czech by OSE Community Translator Vlasta Hozova.

Aaron McKay is a gardener and Forest School teacher based in Ramsgate, Kent, with a specialism in child-led and outdoor learning. Aaron oversees OSE’s allotment planters at Ethel-Athel Alleway Garden. He has previously worked with grassroots, neurodivergent play charity See Me Play at The Garden Gate Project, and with Open School East’s Despacito Art School as part of the programme cycle Home is where the garden is.

This Civic Programme event is part of OSE’s two-year thematic cycle Home is where the garden is – find more events: https://openschooleast.org/home-is-civic/