An unusual week for us with a double task and a double mode of transport! We had 2 tasks in need of help tackling the weeks: Luxmore Garden and Florence Green.

Welcome to Philippa it was her first ever good deed and we hope to see you again soon!

Whilst Paul led the warm up I cycled off up the hill to wait at Luxmore for everyone to arrive (I can confirm that hill is just as bad when cycling). Once everyone arrived and the small group of Marta and Alison had headed to Florence Green to join Vic and Julian. It was time to get stuck into some weeding at both tasks.

The key thing at Luxmore is to always leave the ornamental grass but take out the non-ornamental grass which we always find tricky! There was plenty of alkinet and other weeds to be pulling up as well.

Over at Florence Green, the weeds between the hedge saplings that we helped plant needed to be removed to give the best chance of the hedges growing big and strong.

It was time to regroup as a whole group for the group photo and then back down the hill to Glass Mill.

Next weeks task is to Seniors!

The best way to round off a bank holiday is to do some good in the sunshine. It might've been a bit windy but after a day of all weathers, it was great to see a bit of sunshine! Welcome to Holly joining us for her first group run, hope you had a great time!

It was a short run this evening to Luxmore Garden and it was our first visit of the year so guess what...lot's of alkinet to remove. There was also bindweed and nettles and some litter to clear.

The final task of the evening was to pile all the weeds onto the compost pile.

Marta should definitely now hold some sort of record for the longest in tact alkinet root ever pulled up at a GG group run!!

Out into the bright sunshine 😎 I skipped along to Luxmore Gardens and found Dan chatting with Mo. It was his first GoodGym session and he'd picked a perfect day to start. Mo explained where the compost needed to go and we started shovelling and wheelbarrowing. We’d soon finished and Mo told us about the new mural that is planned to be painted next week. GoodGym helped with the previous one. Exciting!

Everyone was excited for a group run to Luxmore Gardens without involving alkinet but also everyone was tired from the big half and music festivals. We slowly made our way up the hill to see just how much mulch awaited us.

On arrival at Luxmore we were met by the team with multiple wheelbarrows, plenty of tools and 2 giant bags of mulch.

It wasn't long before we got into a groove, loading the wheelbarrows, taking them down to the flower beds, raking the mulch around the plants and bringing the wheelbarrrows back.

A surprisingly quick amount of time later and both bags were empty!! Next time, we're going to have 3 bags to empty!

Another trip to Luxmore Gardens before it gets too dark and the gates as shut early. As usual we needed to tackle the green alkinet and any bindweed that was taking over the plants. There's always a lot of each of those weeds, they end up taking over the plants and stealing their nutrients and water.

Luckily we had a large team of volunteers from Friends of Luxmore Gardens to complete the task even quicker than normal. Well done team!

We'll be heading back to Luxmore Gardens one last time this year to tackle some mulching.

A group of us headed to Mamma Dough for pizza which after a long hiatus was very good pizza!

Next week is a longer run to Seniors and we'll be doing some big tasks in the garden. See you there!

To start the group run this week, I was interested to know if anyone had discovered any new favourite sports to watch since the Olympics have been on. We had some new sports and some sticking with their favourite sports from last week.

Our group run task for last night was Luxmore Gardens and on arrival after tackling the hill, we were given the good news that Glendale had weeded so we got to do more cosmetic tasks.

On our to do list was: - tidy up the edges of the border nearest the gate so that it looks tidy when people enter the park - untangling the bindweed that's taking over some of the plants - technically weeding - chopping back some of the bigger shrubs and plants - covering the border near the gate with a layer of mulch plus relocating all the bugs to a new area of the garden

A short run meant that most of us were back for the 800m final! Don't forget we have the summer social on Saturday at Hilly Fields - more details to follow today!