Community garden update
After the disappointment of not being able to welcome anyone in to the new community garden during 2020 – the first spring and summer it would have been completely planted up and accessible to the community – we hope to welcome people into it once we come out of lockdown. In the meantime, Heritage Hub staff and volunteers have been working hard to make sure everything looks as good as it can be ready for the summer.
Jonathan, a local volunteer, was busy over the autumn last year doing weeding and cutting back of the flowers and herbs in our formal borders by the Dunrossil Centre. As a result, these are all starting to grow back and we think they will look fantastic in a few weeks’ time. We are excited to welcome community garden volunteers soon as well, when restrictions allow.
The winter border really came into its own in February and March this year, with hellebores, snowdrops and daffodils all coming into flower within a few weeks of each other. Yellow daffodils have also been flowering next to the car park outside the Family History Centre, and in the formal borders. Spring is definitely springing!
In mid March, Greenfields returned to dig a wildlife pond for us. This was very exciting as it had been a long time in the planning and it was great to see it finally happening. They also dug out all the grass from the new pond to the bee area so that we can sow wildflower seeds, which was very helpful as the grass would have taken ages to dig out by hand. The pond has now been planted up and looks great. Hopefully we’ll get some wildlife taking an interest in it soon!
The bees are doing well coming into spring having survived the cold winter. We now have three hives – just the one colony but we’re hoping to expand this into at least two by the end of the year. At the time of writing it is sunny and we’ve been watching the bees go foraging in all directions which has been wonderful (and a relief!) to see.
Finally, the interpretation panels for the garden were installed on 24th March by Typecraft. This was a wonderful joint effort and I think we can all agree they look amazing. The panels take the garden visitor past the Dunrossil Centre and all the way up the garden, explaining the history of the site, and enhancing our offer to visitors on the city’s heritage trail.
Ally McConnell - March 2021