This is what we achieved in the Storey Gardens during April 2023:

• More visitors are coming into the gardens so in addition to all the gardening we spend time telling them about the gardens and selling plants
• Development of the herb bed for the Printroom Café in the Copper Beech Garden.  After removing weeds the chives and existing parsley are easier to locate. Parsley dill and coriander seeds have been sown and seedlings planted.
• Weeded the edges of many paths In The Tasting Garden to help define these for the first mowing by the Grounds Maintenance team. We were assisted by two volunteers from the Lancaster Men’s Hub.
• Weeded around the fruit trees and the borders removing hogweed, celandines, hedge garlic and creeping buttercup to name a few. Pulled out Spanish bluebell leaves and flowers from the wildflower areas to inhibit multiplication.
• Weeded and tidied the plants in pots by the water tanks to make them suitable for sale.  Potted up more plants from the garden including native primroses and native cowslips, and spent a lot of time writing labels providing useful information about the plants.
• Cut out dead parts off the fuschia in the café patio area.
• Planted giant snowdrops, stichwort, Anemone Pulsatilla., Ersimum Bowles Mauve, Anthemis tinctoria E.C. Buxton, a Hardy crysanthemum ‘Clara Curtis’ and meadow cranesbill in The Tasting Garden and two cyclamen coum under the copper beech tree.
• Dug out old gooseberry bushes and more raspberry canes.  Planted two virtually thornless gooseberry bushes, Pax, which produces sweet red berries.
• Fiona created a beautiful flower arrangement for the unveiling ceremony.
• Made a new support for the rose Zephirine, finished a table for plants not ready for sale and replaced the pallet gate to the compost area.

Plants in flower in the gardens during April included.

This is what we achieved in the Storey Gardens during March 2023:

• Installed three bird boxes in The Tasting Garden.
• Planted more snowdrops along path in the Copper Beech garden, rudbeckia in the Bee and Butterfly border, cowslips in the wildflower meadow and a hardy Chrysanth (Mrs Jessie Cooper).
• Weeding has been a major activity. In The Tasting Garden we weeded the beds alongside the Meeting House wall and the Georgian wall and the area behind the Hessle pear tree. We also weeded the bed in front of the hedge in the Copper Beech Garden.
• Emptied one of the leaf mould cages and filled it with leaves stored in large builders’ sacks.
• Cut off regrowth on a sycamore stump and cut back the buddleias.
• Cut back and dug out brambles from behind the yew hedge along the Meeting House Lane border.  Removed excess soil for use when potting-up plants for sale.
• Thinned the raspberry canes to make more room in the soft fruit bed.
• Created flower arrangements for the Storey PrintRoom Café.
• Provided Ludus Dance with punnets and soil. Ludus Dance are running a children’s Easter Club in The Storey during the Easter School holidays. One of the activities will involve the children planting climbing beans to take home.
• Divided a phlomis tuberosa (Jerusalem Sage) and planted out in three clumps.
• Removed some ivy from the wall in the Copper Beech Garden behind the Plants for Sale area.

Nature Note – We saw a pair of song thrushes in the Gardens during March. They used to be frequent visitors but we haven’t seen any for some time.