Over the last 2 years the Warneford Hospital has been building an eight-bed psychiatric intensive care unit (PICU) to enable young people experiencing the most acute phase of a serious mental disorder to receive specialist help closer to home. The new Meadow Unit opened late last year, adjoining the Highfield Unit where we've been involved previously.

The gardens at the Meadow Unit have been designed and planted but over the summer months have become swamped with weeds. De-weeding is the perfect job for a GoodGym flash mob - many hands make light work! Starting in the furthest section of gardens we gradually worked our way back to the external gates, freeing geraniums, hydrangeas and pretty grasses from encroaching weeds. Lots of careful checking of "weed or deliberate?!" ensued as we did our level best not to pull up anything that should be there (including the intentional thistles). We cleared numerous trugs and wheelbarrows full of weeds, tried our best to keep our chat quiet by the ward windows (not easy with many back for their first task post summer holidays and lots to catch up on!), and learnt plenty about about plant identification.

We very much hope the garden thrives as it gets more established and is a joyful feature for service users and staff.

Welcome to GoodGym Charlie!

Last night we made a return to the garden of the Highfield Unit after a 2 year hiatus. The Highfield is the young people's mental health in-patient unit at Warneford Hospital. Some of the garden has recently been redesigned into a much more inviting space, which was lovely to see.

The garden is divided into 3 sections, so we divided into a trio of teams to weed, prune and lop. We weeded and pruned outside the dining room to give a clearer view of the lovely new garden design, lopped bramble and pulled up nettles in the mosaic garden, and weeded and pruned the shaded corridor space outside some of the bedrooms.

We amassed a large pile of clippings and prunings and worked up a bit of a sweat, so were grateful for the water and biscuits we were given at the end.

Welcome to GoodGym Catriona (Kitty).

Last night we were asked to return to Cotswold House Eating Disorder Unit to work on the garden. The unit has a pretty courtyard garden filled with aromatic herbs, lavendar and buddleia. It's nicely thought out, with treats for the eyes and the nose, as well as being full of plants which pollinators love. Last year we did a couple of gardening sessions to keep the weeds at bay and as the weather starts to warm up it was high time we returned to give the garden a once-over before the weeds take hold. The pots and planters had been planted up with pansies since out last visit - lovely and cheery - and a general prune of the larger shrubs had obviously been done recently. That meant we didn't need to tackle too much bamboo and could focus on weeding between the paving, digging out long grass encroaching on the borders, and some light pruning and trimming of last year's dead growth to allow the newly emerging shoots to get light and space.

An hour flew by - it's easy to lose track of time when you're busy!

Cotswold House is an award winning specialist adult eating disorders service provided by Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust. There are 2 two modern eating disorders units in Oxford and Marlborough, Wiltshire. After our day trip to Marlborough to tidy up the garden of the Cotswold House there we were recommende to Oxford site too. Et voila! Cotswold House take 2!

After some minor faffing trying to get the garden gates open, we soon got to work in the walled garden. The Warneford Hospital site is large but only has a very small gardening team, so it's difficult for them to lavish lots of attention on weeding and pruning. The Cotswold House garden used to be looked after by a keen volunteer gardener, but recently it has got a bit overgrown, so secateurs and pruning saws in hand we started to tackle the job.

This turned into one of the most fragrant garden tasks we've ever had, as we lopped back sage (who knew sage grows into a whole woody shrub if you let it?!), rosemary, lavender, and buddleia. Jessy and Sarah did great work clearing a bench from under a tangle of bamboo and roses - looked beautiful in a wild kinda way, but not great for accessing the seat! Others pruned, weeded, and sawed, amassing a large pile of trimmings and weeds. Wheelbarrow crew trekked across the site to dispose of most of it on the big compost heap near the meadow, but there was a small amount left in the garden to be collected another time.

There was even time for a bit of ping pong before we left the garden.

Good work team!

Thanks to our Run Leaders for their help - Ben for leading the run up to Warneford Hospital, and Bethan for coordinating a longer run after the task.

Welcome to GoodGym Joe - lovely to meet you!

In a change of activity for a Monday evening we met for an evening of apple picking at the Warneford orchard instead of our usual Monday walk.

We stretched and climbed, and used some expert hand-eye coordination to loop apples down with litter pickers (surprisingly good for this task!) and apple picking poles. The apples were a mix of eaters and cookers, and should make a delicious blend for juice.

We filled 3.5 crates with apples, which will be pressed into apple juice and sold to benefit Warneford Hospital.

Welcome to Oxford Kieran - good to meet you!

The garden at the Highfield unit is looking WAY less bramble infested now after our regular work over the spring and summer. This last evening visit of the summer (and of the year!) was an opportunity for a good tidy-up before autumn sets in.

Weeding, raking, nettle pulling, and - of course - bramble lopping were the tasks of the night. We even found buried treasure as we unearthed some teeny tiny potatoes. We replanted them in hopes of a full crop next year.

Side note: only at GoodGym would the declaration "I found a potato!" receive the reply "What? another one?!".

Several of wheelbarrow loads of weeds and grass cuttings were removed, ideas discussed for perennials which might bring some colour to the planting next year, and we were all done before 7:30pm sunset.

We were grateful for water and juice from the ward staff - thank you!

Welcome back to Oxford Jessica L and congrats on your 10th Good Deed!

Well done on your 1st GoodGym Good Deed Jessica V.