Three Pigeons plot Small Group Session Sunday 13 September 2020: Sunday Buddy Sunday

A beautiful sunny September Sunday morning session at Three Pigeons Plot. A variety of tasks, no end of praise from passers by for four Richmond GoodGym buddies and several September before & after transformations to be proud of.

Harry attached an offcut of large bore drainage pipe into the gable roof space of the Insect hotel to create a ‘window’through the structure. Over time, we will add more terracotta to fill the surround but this big round porthole will be a feature, drawing the eye to the other side. His work was almost instantly rewarded by a passer-by commenting that she ‘loved the sculpture’. Next task was a major tidy and cleanup of the Beuucleuch Gardens ‘Arcade’ (formerly known as the lock-up). A particularly charming touch was the transformation of the tool store into a Wendy-house by the addition of the temporary insect hotel roof. The GoodGym red chair looked great moved next to it (there’s a pair of GG logo red cushions almost ready to tie on for a bit of subtle brand awareness). Some watering and green waste disposal to finish.

Kate swept up the leaves, helped with weed location and identification, worked on filling plastic pots with dry stems to attract solitary bees and couldn’t hold back from doing a spot of weeding as well.

Monika joined after completing the socially distanced Richmond Runfest Kew 10K and made fantastic job of clearing the weeds along the Three Pigeons Apartment boundary wall.

Anita rearranged and added some new terracotta pots into the roof space of the Insect Hotel, in the process discovering a lost pair of gloves. Most of the pots are up-ended to provide protection and nesting sites for insects but two camembert-sized baking dishes have been left upright to provide shallow water for dopey late summer bumble bees to drink from, without risk of drowning. She also: took photographs of weeds with the intention of creating a laminated ‘weed spotters guide‘ that can be left tethered to the Insect Hotel: created more mini soak-aways for the acers, dwarf myrtles and caenothus, at the same time clearing the weeds from around these plants to help them give them more light and soil nutrients; and she moved a few plants into new positions more suited to their height and foliage.