May Open Days Round Up
Well hasn’t May just felt like the rainiest month ever?! I think every gardener in the UK was wishing for rain back in April, and we certainly got what we wished for. Each open day this month has greeted us with at least a little bit of drizzle, and sometimes torrential rain and hail! However, we managed to power on through with the help of a donated gazebo, giving us a dry retreat for tea, biscuits, and chats.
We have achieved so much throughout May, with the first open day of the month revolving around fabricating structures for our flowers to grow up. We built a new sweet pea wall at the bottom of the garden with a few wooden poles and some jute netting. Our attendees were amazing, swiftly constructing the wall and planting out all the autumn-sown sweet peas in just a matter of hours! We also ended up sawing some wooden poles for the bed boarders, and stringing jute netting across the poles, which will act as support for flower stems in each bed once they grow taller.
The following Saturday, on 8th May, brought TORRENTIAL rain. We nearly called off the open day, but with the gazebo up, we thought if worst comes to worst, we could always sow seeds underneath the shelter of the gazebo. We turned up in full waterproofs, and to our surprise everyone was up for getting out and embracing the rain. We got absolutely soaked but had the most hilarious time planting out lots of seedlings, building a sweet pea tepee and potting up dahlia tubers. I think delirium must have kicked it, but we managed to brave the rain for a full 3 hours, and we all left with a great sense of achievement and mud smeared across our faces.
Saturday 15th May was a day dedicated to our wonderful Bloom volunteers who enable us to run open days every week. The Covid-restricted world that we’ve all been living in for the past year has meant that none of our volunteers have had the opportunity to meet one another. The day was spent enjoying the garden, chatting, and sharing ideas.
May has been a whirlwind of a month, and the flowers are starting to wake up with some warmer weather forecast. The upcoming open days will be spent maintaining all our hard work so far, and hopefully we’ll be able to enjoy a summer full of blooms. We have loved welcoming so many new women to the garden who have each helped us to create a wonderful space.