The annual plant sale at Charlton House is run by the Charlton House Garden Volunteers and CABAHS. It's always a popular event, raising much needed funds for the Community Hospice and maintenance of the grounds at the House.

Set in the lovely walled garden, we lent a hand getting things ready for the event:

🌻 Collecting trestle tables from Charlton House and setting them up in the garden.

💐 Setting up the display shelving.

🪻Fetching plants from the small walled garden to the sales area.

🍰 Putting up the gazebo for the Women's Institute cake stall.

🌹Putting out signage boards around the estate.

When it was all set up the garden looked wonderful with loads of plants ready to go to new homes (well, gardens really!)

With opening time approaching a long queue of customers had formed, all eager for the gates to open.

We left before the rush, and headed to the Old Cottage Tearooms for a coffee to round off the morning.

A beautiful day saw 7 of us help out a the lovely family fun day at Roots4Life today. Justine, Johnny, Sarah, Ashton and myself helped in the first shift, Justine and Ashton manning the smoothy bike (a great hit with kids and grown ups alike!), Johnny and Sarah on the bouncy castle, me on the raffle stall and as if it was all perfectly planned, Khai and Sarah arrived to take over after their respective tasks of building a train set and litter picking in the morning! You've gotta give extra kudos to the double deeders any day!

Great to see you all and thank you for helping the event go smoothly! The session next week at Roots has been cancelled but we'll be back to help with their growing day on the 7th June!

Until next time 🥰

We joined the Friends of Lesnes Abbey and Woods for their monthly conservation session.

The group's work each month is guided by the parks manager who this time had asked us to clear litter at the far side of the woods, before heading to The Heath to work on restoring the natural vegetation there.

So we loaded litter pickers, bin bags and loppers into two wheelbarrows and headed off to the litter troublespot. If you have been to Lesnes Abbey Woods you'll know there are some very steep climbs, and pushing the wheelbarrows up them was a good workout! We were rewarded with glorious patches of bluebells all around.

When we got to the appointed spot the cow parsley was so tall that despite our best efforts we struggled to find any rubbish 👀. Most likely a job for another day when the plants have died back.

We made our way through the woods - litterpicking as we went, and loads more bluebells en route - to The Heath where we set about cutting back holly, bracken and other plants to let the heather thrive. It was lovely getting busy in the sunshine.

We'll be back again next month. Perhaps we'll see you there?