Two GoodGymers ran to Stoke Newington Common on a sunny Wednesday evening to help local residents with planting on the park.

Recently there have been problems with people driving over the common, so to make this more difficult the council had built some earthen mounds at the edge of the park. Local residents wanted to make the earth mounds nicer to look at, so had kindly donated lots of beautiful plants from their own gardens to plant on the mound to make them greener.

Anne and Eva met with local user group SNUG, to help plant the assortment of cuttings. After planting around 35 small plants then came the task of watering them. One resident had brought a long hose which we attached to a nearby water source, and Eva spent about 15 minutes watering the newly bedded plants to give them the best chance for survival. While she did that (carefully avoiding the other volunteers!), Anne helped the group to build a fence around our precious planting area, to stop people walking over the new plants before they were safely bedded in.

I look forward to returning to Stokie Common in a few weeks to see how the plants are doing!