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A roof garden, developed in partnership with the Eden Project, has been created at London’s Southbank Centre by a team of 50 people who have faced adversity in life High above the modernist splendour of London’s Southbank Centre, Estella Hause takes a seat next to Scruffy the dog and surveys her work. “Everything I’ve done I didn’t know anything about before,” she says, waving a muddy hand at a bed of 100 native British wildflowers and grasses on the roof of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. “I’ve learnt about different plants, how deep you plant them, how much you have to water them. I came up and just started helping. Since then they haven’t been able to get rid of me. I love it.” The roof garden, developed in partnership with the Eden Project as part of the Southbank’s 60th anniversary homage to the 1951 Festival of Britain, has been created by a team of 50 people who have faced adversity in life. Most have been homeless, spent time in prison or have mental health problems. Hause, a 30-year-old former drug addict who has been in prison for violent offences, was urged to join by a visitor to the women’s group she attends. Although she has only been involved for a week, she has taken to the work with such zeal that the gardening team’s leader, Paul Pulford, calls her his “right-hand woman”. Pulford, also known as Scruffy (he and his dog share the name), started gardening seven years ago after moving into a Providence Row Housing Association hostel in east London. “I was living on the streets and was addicted to heroin, alcohol, I had mental health problems. I didn’t care whether I woke up the next day or not,” he says. He formed a gardening club that spread to other Providence Row hostels and included taking on community work. For the last two years it has helped create the Eden Project’s silver medal-winning show gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show. “Horticulture has changed my life,” Pulford says. The success of the group, he says, hinges partly on its members’ shared experiences: “Any problems that anyone has, I’ve had them all.” Touring the 1,200 sq metre garden, which includes a mini orchard, vegetable plots and a pergola swathed in sweetly-scented climbers, he points out rare wildflowers and describes how they will attract bees and butterflies. “We’ve created a living work of art,” Pulford says. “We’re celebrating the beautiful flowers of the British Isles.” For Shân Maclennan, the Southbank Centre’s creative director of learning and participation, it is the gardeners who are important. “It allows people who’ve faced certain challenges to put themselves back in the world,” she says. Hause’s delight in her work suggests she is right. “It’s really therapeutic. Normally, when I wake up in the morning, I cry. This week, I’ve woken up every day smiling.” • The 60th anniversary celebrations of the Festival of Britain run until 4 September. Homelessness Alcohol Drugs Social exclusion Mental health Festivals Rachel Williams guardian.co.uk