Springtime at Katharine House hospice
Diane and I were at Katharine House Hospice this morning to view a patch of ground which their team leader, Colin Sykes, thought might suit our purposes, and indeed we were delighted with the area Colin took us too.
It’s a longish patch just down from the compost bins and the bonfire area, rather neglected, stony and fairly full of stinging nettles which, you will be pleased to hear, we will be able to get rid of more or less easily for Colin has promised to put down some quick acting chemical to deal with the offending greenery. We shall leave a few plants at the back of the bed to encourage butterflies.
the long view…
Forget Me Nots amongst the nettles!!!
We have also been given permission to trim away some of the over-hanging branches of the trees at either end of the patch and offered the use of any of their equipment, as required.
There’s a water supply and hose pipe fairly close-by and a new connecting attachment and sprinkler will be made ready for our next visit.
We have also been promised the help of two of their volunteer gardeners if we need their assistance to get things moving.
We were invited to stay for elevenses and to meet their team of helpers who were also most interested to meet us and altogether, the morning was a great success. One of their lady helpers was a WI member from Middleton Cheney and our meeting prompted an interesting chatter over coffee.
The gardens are absolutely brimming over with springtime colour and exuberance while the viburnum plant was positively overpoweringly sweet-smelling and gorgeous. We viewed their bog garden, the greenhouse full of Scottish rockery seedlings, veggie seedlings and one yacon seedling – “from northern and central Andes, it has a crisp, sweet tasting tuberous root; another name is the Peruvian ground apple.” Ref: Google Page information, from my iphone”. Apparently, once in the ground, it just grows and grows! We liked their animal statuary and delighted to see a visiting heron in the field beyond the garden fence.
Sweet-smelling Viburnum
So Diane and I will be at Katharine House Hospice next Thursday morning, 30th April from 9.30-ish to midday and if any other members are willing and able to join us, we should be very pleased to see them!!!
Spring has sprung!!!
Margaret Halstead
Ref: Google Page information – “from northern and central Andes, it has a crisp, sweet tasting tuberous root; another name is the Peruvian ground apple.” – downloaded from my iphone.