When you genuinely care about the place you’re in, people feel it. It builds trust – and trust is the whole foundation of what we do.
Every June, gardens across Greenwich and Bexley throw open their gates for the Greenwich & Bexley Community Hospice Open Gardens Festival. For two weekends, local people invite visitors in to wander their lawns and admire their borders – all to raise funds for a hospice that does extraordinary work for families across our area.
This year, for the first time, a business joined the line-up. That business was us. Which is a little cheeky, because we don’t actually have a garden.
What we have is a corner. And we’ve been tending it for years.
A corner worth caring about
When we first moved into our office, where Delacourt Rd meets Old Dover Rd, the patch outside was not what you’d call a beauty spot. Tired concrete. Empty beer cans and crisp packets. The occasional little silver canister of something nobody wants to think about too hard.
So we planted it. Some troughs to form borders. A bin store with a sedum roof. A green wall (which, I should say, is gloriously un-green – it’s a riot of colour). And every year since, it’s grown a bit bigger and a bit brighter.
The change happened pretty fast. The litter thinned out. The loitering moved on. The corner started to look like somewhere that was cared for – because it was. Passers-by began stopping to say how much it had brightened the road, and their day. My own favourite five minutes of a sunny working day is still nipping out with a coffee to do a bit of deadheading – though I rarely manage it in peace, because there’s almost always a fellow gardener passing who wants to compare notes. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Why a financial firm bothers with flowers
If you were cynical, you might think it’s all a marketing wheeze. But we didn’t plant the corner to win business.
We did it because this is our patch. We’re a family business, and we mean the family bit. We live here. We work here. We love this corner of South East London and, most of all, we love its people. Being part of the community isn’t something we bolt on for show – it’s simply who we are and how we want to work.
And yes, it matters to the business too, though not in the way you might expect. When you genuinely care about the place you’re in, people feel it. It builds trust – and trust is the whole foundation of what we do. It makes our team proud of where they work. And as we grow, it helps us find the right people: the ones who care about the same things we do.
It’s no wonder we named ourselves after a tree! A ginkgo puts down deep roots, weathers whatever comes, and keeps on growing. That’s exactly the kind of firm we set out to be.
That neglected little corner, as it happens, was also where Grow with Ginkgo first took root – the community programme that now runs through everything we do, from fundraising and sponsoring local causes to free financial education drop-ins for community groups. Flower power in action!
Our open garden
So when Open Gardens came round, inviting people to our little green corner felt like the most natural thing in the world. We laid on Pimm’s and homemade cake, set out plants for sale, and spent a glorious afternoon swapping tips with the local gardeners who took the trouble to come and find us. Some of you reading this were there – thank you. Together we raised £500 for the hospice.
We’ll be back
Will we do it again? You bet! Bigger and brighter next year, naturally. I’m already eyeing up where we can squeeze in a few more plants and spread a little more horticultural joy into our corner of Blackheath Standard.
So if you’re passing where Delacourt Rd meets Old Dover Rd, do slow down and have a look. And if I’m out there with my coffee and my secateurs, come and say hello. Bring your best gardening tips – I’m always after new ones!
Debra Blundell is Co-Founder of Ginkgo Financial in Blackheath.
