
The Walled Garden along with the rest of Ravenscourt Park was closed to the public as part of the Covid 19 lockdown in March 2020. Peak spring growing season! In June a very few of us were allowed to let ourselves in through the still locked gates to the Walled Garden, only to find the bindweed had had a field day and in the four main herbaceous beds had completely smothered the plants.
The pile of bindweed photographed below is what we were able to pull off that first Saturday.
With so much more needing to be done and the council gardening team short staffed due to 'shielding' leave, we decided that once a month was insufficient to get the garden back into shape.
Later in June the gates had been opened to all park users which made it all rather easier for us and we decided to work in the garden every Saturday morning for the time being (indeed we did so right up to end of September). Social distancing was carefully observed and all our tools remained unused in the shed as we all had to bring our own as no sharing. We were thrilled too to welcome a number of new volunteers to help with our herculean task.
We still have to observe social distancing and no sharing of tools and with Spring 2021 on the horizon we will have our work cut out keeping the bindweed under control and the garden in good shape do its enjoyment by many park users.
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