Our Story
​At No Plant Left Behind, we're a not-for-profit Community Interest Company on a mission to reconnect people with nature through welcoming, hands-on, and creatively designed projects.
​No Plant Left Behind has grown into more than a name — it’s a movement rooted in everyday action, led by young changemakers, and driven by the belief that everyone can shape their own green space. We help people build confidence, grow connection, and create thriving communities where nature belongs to everyone.
Jan 2020 - Amy’s goal
The story of No Plant Left Behind began as a simple but ambitious project by Amy, who at the time was a Landscape Architecture student at the University of Sheffield (UoS). Driven by her passion for plants, design, and sustainability, Amy envisioned a café project that would merge the concept of a natural, resourceful landscape with the café itself, using the land to grow food for the community. She began experimenting with upcycled containers—cans, plastic bottles, and other recyclables—to grow fruits and vegetables, intending to share these plants at the university’s end-of-year show to engage people with the project’s design and efficiency.
Mar 2020 - COVID Lockdown
But when COVID-19 struck, all plans for the event vanished, leaving Amy with dozens of seedlings and no place to distribute them. Determined to keep her plants thriving, she took them back to her family home, sparking what would become a transformative project. Vowing that "no plant would be left behind," Amy and her family began caring for this unexpected garden, learning the joys and rewards of growing their own food.
Jul 2020 - Project: cultivating food scraps
With lockdown making shopping trips difficult, the Marsden family started cultivating vegetables from food scraps—tomato seeds, apple cores, avocado pits. The simplicity of an avocado pit sprouting new life from waste fascinated Amy, inspiring her to experiment with propagating houseplants and re-growing outdoor plants from trimmings. This led her to the idea of growing and selling plants as sustainable alternatives, focusing on those that were peat-free, locally grown, and even salvaged from defected or discarded plants in the traditional houseplant industry. The project soon outgrew her summerhouse, and she upgraded to an industrial greenhouse where hundreds of plants, from tomatoes to avocado trees, took root each week.
Apr 2021 - Connecting others to nature
As her plant collection flourished, so did the community around it. Local cafes donated their food waste—hundreds of avocado pits and other scraps—that Amy transformed into flourishing houseplants. She started offering workshops to share her knowledge, and people flocked to learn how to grow their own plants from kitchen scraps. Her mission was clear: to show that anyone could grow greenery and food from materials they’d normally throw away. This mission caught attention, and Channel 5 invited her to lead a segment on growing food from scraps, helping her inspire even more people to reconnect with nature and reduce waste.
Apri 2022 - Lightbulb moment
After moving to Cambridge, Amy spent the next few years volunteering and working in the landscape architecture field, where she noticed that many people were uncertain about how to nurture plants or grow their own food, despite their desire to connect with nature. She realized that No Plant Left Behind could serve a greater purpose—to create accessible green spaces and empower communities to connect with nature.
Jan 2024 - The birth of NPLB
The next big step for No Plant Left Behind came when Amy launched it as a CIC (Community Interest Company), dedicated to reconnecting diverse communities with nature and making sustainability accessible for all. Around this time, she discovered the St John’s Hoxton Community Garden through the Trash Nothing app, where she saw people seeking free plants. Recognizing the potential, she reached out to offer her support, and together with the Hoxton community, they transformed the space into what has now become the heart of No Plant Left Behind.
Now - No Plant Left Behind Community
Today, No Plant Left Behind is a thriving volunteer-driven project with community garden space, offering workshops on everything from regrowing food from scraps to propagating houseplants and nurturing outdoor gardens sustainably. The community garden in Hoxton has blossomed into a sanctuary—a place where people from all walks of life can reconnect with nature, learn sustainable gardening practices, and leave with a sense of empowerment and new skills.
