THE FRIENDS NEWSLETTER
Issue No 7
August 2013
August in The Gardens
Working in the herb bed at the beginning of August was a very pleasant experience,
even though many of the plants had to come out, as they were competing aggressively
with each other for the available space – and even for that which was not really
available. Tugging out huge bushes of marjoram and lemon verbena released some
enticing odours into the warm summer air, reminiscent of Mediterranean cooking smells
– very evocative. The bees seemed a bit put-out – obviously they were enjoying the
multitude of marjoram flowers – marjoram flavoured honey, anyone?
There is starting to be a feeling that summer’s over now in The
Gardens. The cascade of deep
red roses over the central wall
looks like something more suited
for Miss Haversham’s bouquet, or
an exercise in dead-heading for an
apprentice gardener. The bluerinse teasels are now a faded grey
and where there were once flowers are now berries or seed heads, all ready and
waiting to begin again – some less desirable than others. There is still some colour in
the borders and perhaps more will come with some autumn flowering.
We were sorry to note at the August work session that a
new clump of Japanese knotweed is starting to form in the
north-east corner, and people from the Friends’ Meeting
House report that they have some coming on their land also.
A concerted effort and ceaseless vigilance thereafter is
needed to keep this aggressive invader at bay.
Ragwort, although vivid, is another visitor which perhaps we don’t
want to encourage – or maybe it’s only poisonous to cattle. Maybe
better not install those sheep to keep the grass down.
On a more positive note the apple trees are swelling with fruit
and the plum trees although rather straggly have dropped
enough windfalls (2½lbs) to make plum chutney to add to the
other preserves and conserves to be sold for the upkeep of
The Gardens. Perhaps we can put together bags of apples to
sell at the design consultation day on 12 October.
Design Consultation Day
Our main consultation event for the future of The Gardens is scheduled for Saturday 12
October, 11.00-3.00, when we hope that all those who are interested in seeing The
Gardens reopened to the public as a community resource will visit The Gardens and
share their thoughts and ideas with us. There will be a fortnight of publicity beforehand
and a period for the public to give us their thoughts for a further fortnight afterwards. It
will be exciting to see what ideas come up – maybe things we have never thought of.
As well as opening up The Gardens for people to look around and think what they would
like to see there, we shall be selling some of the produce of The Gardens – plants, fruit,
jams and chutneys. I’m very sure it’s our turn for good weather on that day – many
interested people saw The Gardens in the rain in June, and some sunshine will promote
people’s creative instincts.
We already have some teams of volunteers for the various activities relating to the
design consultation process and will be calling for more at the September meeting.
Fairfield Association Design Consultation Exercise
Somewhat ahead of us in the game is the Fairfield Association, looking for the public’s
ideas on their new acquisition of 32 acres of land next to their existing holdings of the
Millennium Orchard and the Fauna Fields, making almost 50 acres of nature reserve to
the South of Lancaster and West of the canal. A very substantial grant from the
Heritage Lottery Fund and lots of community support has enabled the Fairfield
Association (FA) to buy this land with the aim of developing it to conserve the local
landscape in wildlife-friendly ways. The FA does of course have many ideas for the
development, but they would like to hear from the public who will be able to enjoy this
land in perpetuity.
The Fairfield Association consultation will be held over two days, Friday 6 September
1.00-7.00pm and Saturday 7 September 10.00am-4.00pm in the Friends’ Meeting
House, Meeting House lane, Lancaster. There will be graphics, photographs and text to
explain the development (and refreshments to get the creative juices flowing) and lots of
opportunity for members of the public to comment. We urge everyone to go along and
offer their thoughts – and we can pick up some tips for our own design consultation
exercise too.
Next Meetings
The next Work Session is on Sunday 6th October, 2-4; and the next business meeting
is on Tuesday 24 September, 6.00pm at NICE.
The next Newsletter will be out the weekend of 5 October and copy should be sent to
Sue on sueandmart@o2.co.uk by Friday 27 September.