Last month we reported the arrival of much needed rain. In November we had even more. This plus the reduced periods of daylight meant that we were not able to do as much gardening as we would have liked.

However, we did persevere, and this is what we achieved.

• Continued gathering up fallen leaves.  At the beginning of the month this was in the Copper Beech Garden prior to the Light Up Lancaster festival (to read a report of this and to watch a video, click here).  In The Tasting Garden, we focussed on the paths as we don’t want the rotted leaves to fertilise the weeds in the paths.
• Fiona arranged some more flowers from the gardens for inside The Storey.  This included three dry flower arrangements.
• Collected a substantial amount of well-rotted horse manure.  There was plenty available, and you can see from the photograph in the slideshow below how much more is left for another time.
• Did a lot of autumn pruning and cutting back (e.g. honeysuckle, Michaelmas daisies, buddleia, golden rod, briars, brambles and laurel).  The cut branches and stems had to be bagged up for removal by the Lancaster City Council Grounds Maintenance team.
• Removed runner bean canes for storage over winter.
• Weeded and generally tidied up the Herb area.
• Weeded the bed alongside the ramp up into the Copper Beech garden and planted some violas and cuttings of a ceanothus and a purple hebe.
• Planted some crocus bulbs in the Copper Beech Garden.
• Emptied one of the compost bins.  Filled up another and levelled off with a layer of horse manure and then cardboard.  Put some pots of cuttings on top.
• Potted up two sage plants from long stems that had been pegged down.  Pegged down some more stems.
• Weeded around the soft fruit bushes and dug out some of the old raspberry canes.  Put down some compost.  There is more of this to do.
• Two of our volunteers attended a meeting of the Groundwork Northern Network. The aim is to connect green community spaces across Northern England. More about this a future post.