A busy commuter train station is an unlikely place to find a haven for flowers, bees and hedgehogs.
But a decade-old project in London bringing an eco-friendly combination of gardening, horticulture and so-called rewilding to the urban jungle is bearing fruit during the pandemic.
Hiding in plain sight, 34 solar-powered sites created by the community-led project Energy Garden are dotted around the British capital, adjacent to train platforms used daily by hundreds of thousands of commuters before coronavirus hit.
With lockdowns now easing, the passengers are returning, and the project's chief executive Agamemnon Otero hopes its success can help address a longer-term challenge.
"Energy Garden is really about building resilience in communities. It's about how we directly address the climate change issue that everybody feels they are powerless to do," he told AFP.
"Most of the time, train operators will cut down huge swathes of trackside space and leave it denuded from any type of life.
"These are corridors for biodiversity to come in and so it's very important that a section of every garden is still wild."
Community interest has grown steadily since the initiative started in 2011, but has spiked during lockdown as more volunteers joined to work -- socially distanced -- tending to the gardens.
The first site was established at Brondesbury Park station in northwest London, part of the Overground network that generally services outer suburbs where the Underground does not reach.
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