FLORENCE GREEN

Sustainable garden project to transform an unloved piece of land into a biodiverse space for the community
This is a co-project between two community groups - our aim is to create a sustainable green space for both our community groups to share, improve community relations, increase friendships and less isolation to enhance wellbeing.

24 GoodGymers have supported FLORENCE GREEN with 16 tasks.


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Vic
Vic (She/her)
Greenwich runner

Previous sessions
LewishamCommunity mission
Jacqueline FrancisVicIsaac Beevor

Florence Rowed - this report is oarsome

Saturday 2nd November

Written by Vic (She/her)

Ahoy! It’s Mari(gold) Time to launch ALL the nautical, horticul(ture) puns. Some might even say, I’ve gone overboard, or even written a run report that’s a bit ship.

Three GGers tested their sea legs by heading to Florence Road to help fill the new planter - a small rowing boat which has been donated by the Ahoy! Centre in Greenwich and is now docked at Florence Green.

Buoyed along by eager discussions about how nice it will be to enjoy the space when everything is growing next year, Vic, Isaac, and Jacqueline got to work planting young plants and bulbs.

Naomi (a local resident) used her imagination to create a trellis for the centre of the boat. Planning had been given for a boat but not a mast so the trellis was absolutely definitely not a mast at all in any way.

Isaac continued the watery theme by giving the new plants a good water.

It was oarsome to see the final part of Subo’s vision for Florence Green coming to life.

There may be a few more sessions for weeding to keep the space ship-shape but the majority of the work is now done and we look forward to seeing it blooming in Spring, when the garden will be officially launched!

That’s it, that’s more puns than I have ever thought of in my entire Goodgym career. I’m all at sea!

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LewishamGroup run
+4
Julian Osman
AbiLindsay RamseySander Heinsalu

Fast but not Furious

Monday 7th October

Written by Kim

And also not fast car driving involved but there was lot's and lot's of bulb planting involved! It was a short run this week to Florence Green and with half the group meeting us there, it was a small group running up the hill.

On arrival at Florence Green, Subo had kindly put all the bulbs into individual bags and numbered them depending on which tree we should be planting around. It was time to get stuck into the planting. A fairly straight forward task and the only obstacle was the many tree roots.

On the way back it felt like the group had got much smaller, but it hadn't, we definitely didn't lose anyone! I hope the fox hasn't ate too many of the bulbs we planted!

Next week we are heading to The Albany to tackle the litter and also to tackle the weeds in some areas of the garden. Don't forget headtorches!

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LewishamGroup run
+4
Matthew TiplerJulian OsmanAlison PikeOlivia WallerLindsay RamseyMo Bahrawi

We watering can help!

Monday 16th September

Written by Kim

Double task night which meant we had a couple of people heading to Florence Green to tackle the watering and the rest of us heading to RUSS Community Housing to tackle the weeding. And a couple of us had just come from TRAID. We were helping so many wonderful organisations last night.

It was Lindsay's 50th good deed this evening. Congratulations, we can't wait to see you sporting that black tshirt soon!!

Onto the tasks both were a short run away. At Florence Green there was lots of watering the saplings.

At RUSS there was lots of heaving lifting! We had soil to shift, giant piles of weeds to shift and woodchip to shift but we got it all done and made excellent progress on the woodchip!

Vic and Sarah made excellent progress on the weeding except when it got too dark and they could no longer tell what was a weed and what was a small tree.

We then created my favourite group run photo ever which was unplanned and then some of us headed to Mamma Dough for some post-group run pizza!

Don't forget we have a lot of weekend sessions at RUSS if anyone fancies it.

It's also definitely head torch time of year now and I will be bringing the lights for outdoor tasks.

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LewishamGroup run
+6
Darryl ChamberlainJulian OsmanAlison PikeAbiJanet WongAndy Waterhouse

3110 good deeds

Monday 8th July

Written by Kim

I was trying to think of a good pun to celebrate Vic's 450th good deed and Marta's 750th good deed but without the regular pun creator in attendance, I ended up looking at how many good deeds those in attendance last night have done in total and that is a massive 3110* good deeds.

That's such a huge difference we've made in the Borough of Lewisham, from the new faces to the regular faces - you're all amazing!

Back to the task in hand, we were heading to Florence Green to help clear the weeds from around the young trees. The trees that we helped plant! The team got stuck in and tackled all the beds that needed clearing, hopefully that means the saplings will have the best chance of surviving over summer (if summer ever arrives).

It was nearly time to tuck into the celebratory biscuits that Vic had brought but I made everyone hang on a little longer whilst we completed the fiddly task of removing the rabbit shields from the trees and then tying the saplings to the canes in a figure of eight. We even managed to find 2 giant caterpillars. And then it was time for celebratory biscuits!

A short run back to Glass Mill and enough time for a cool down and chat about the task this eve and upcoming group runs.

*stats in case anyone is interested: Marta: 750 Vic: 450 Steve: 560 Kim: 389 Alison: 59 Andy: 2 Darryl: 157 Iitmari: 112 Janet: 2 Julian: 525 Matt: 77 Abi: 27

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LewishamCommunity mission
Sander Heinsalu

Planks for the planters for the planters

Saturday 27th April

Written by Sander Heinsalu

We marked, sawed and bundled recycled pallet lumber for building planters. There were more volunteers than work, so we finished early. It was difficult to find the place - it was through an overgrown iron door in an alley behind the Lewisham Arthouse.

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LewishamCommunity mission
Julian Osman

Energy-sapling efforts at Florence Green

Saturday 16th December 2023

Written by Julian Osman

Sometimes you just don’t have time to finish the task. And that can be great, as Good Gym had to go back to Florence Green to plant the trees we didn’t have time to plant last week. The local volunteers are transforming this little pocket park to make it greener and prettier, and we were there to help.

Having already done a lot of the prep that we needed to get the trees into the ground on a previous visit, only the planting remained. After marking planting spots with canes, roots were soaked in what we were told was a nutrient solution (although it looked suspiciously like wallpaper paste) and the trees placed in a trench. Next was replacing the soil and popping rabbit guards around and before we knew it a very impressive tree line emerged. And after that and a bit of admiration of our work it was time for a well-earned cup of tea.

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