Kingswells community garden vandalised by 'disgraceful' youths
Introduction
A community garden in Kingswells, on the edge of Aberdeen, has been left in tatters after a group of youths reportedly ripped through its flower beds and left litter across the site. The Forget-Me-Not Garden, attached to Kingswells Community Centre on Kingswells Avenue, was officially opened in April 2025 as a calming green space for local residents, with a particular focus on supporting people living with dementia. Staff at the centre say they were dismayed to find the planting damaged on Monday.
What This Means for UK Gardeners
Vandalism of community plots is an unwelcome but recurring problem across the UK, and incidents like this underline how exposed a freshly planted space can be when there is no dedicated warden on site. For anyone running or volunteering at a similar project, the Kingswells episode is a prompt to think about deterrents and resilience: visible CCTV, clear signage asking visitors to respect the planting, and engaging local schools so that young people understand what the garden is for. Choosing tougher, more established container plants — rather than delicate annual bedding — in the most exposed corners can also reduce the heartbreak when damage does happen. Forget-me-nots themselves are hardy biennials that self-seed freely, so a community bed that is ripped up one season will often recover the next, but the message from Kingswells is that prevention and goodwill matter more than any plant list.
Key Points
- The Forget-Me-Not Garden was created largely through the efforts of a single volunteer named Bryan, who spent around a year turning a muddy, abandoned patch of land into a planted space with seating, play areas and wildlife value.
- CCTV footage is reported to show youths pulling at flowers and dropping litter across the site on Monday.
- Staff took to social media to appeal to parents, asking them to speak to their children about respecting the garden.
- Commenters on the post condemned the damage, with some calling for the young people and their families to put right what had been destroyed.
- The garden has a specific dementia-friendly focus, with forget-me-nots at the heart of the planting scheme, and is intended as a quiet, welcoming space for the whole village.
Further Reading
GardenWizz guides on community growing, low-maintenance UK planting for public spaces, and creating dementia-friendly gardens.