The Health and Safety issues in The Gardens for the City Council seem to have been resolved to a certain extent, at least to the point of allowing gardeners through the doorway between The Gardens to cut the grass, now knee high. It took two council workers a whole day to strim the grass in the Western Garden (if it takes two gardeners eight hours to strim one garden, how long will it take.......? as we used to have to work out in arithmetic). Although casual visitors to The Gardens at the last work session commented favourably on grasses, wild flowers etc, allowed for docks and other the effect of the the gentle chaos also less desirable growths to flourish. The took care of that however. subsequent strimming
The reduction of grass growth revealed numbers of windfall apples
(6lbs/1.8kg since you ask), because of the long grass beneath – definitely the silver lining. scarcely bruised
During the July work session we noticed that there was now plenty of soft fruit almost ready for picking
– raspberries, gooseberries, red and black currants. Two weeks later I went into The Gardens armed with bags and boxes to pick and conserve . Guess what – the birds had been there in the meantime. How naïve not to have expected this – but nonetheless there were some fruits left for me (but only one gooseberry). I picked 4oz of raspberries, 2½lb of redcurrants and 1lb of blackcurrants – with still more to come if I can beat the birds to it. As it was, a blackbird sat on the wall (no H&S concerns there) and upbraided me for intruding on the avian feeding rights. All this

produce resulted in jellies and chutneys of various sorts to be sold at the next public open session – definitely The
Gardens can pay their way.
As to flowers and other plants, roses are cascading over the central wall and along one wall in the Eastern Garden, filling the air with a gorgeous scent, with hollyhocks and other stately plants in the long border. The copper beech is so beautiful against the clear blue skies we have been experiencing over the last month. It is probably far too big for the space available but who could dream of diminishing it in any way?
Chats with City Council people in The Gardens this month have given us a rough timetable of future progress. It looks as if the tree felling will begin the autumn, maybe
October, once grass cutting becomes less of a regular requirement. Work can then be started on the central wall at least, but of course the weather then is less reliable, making it more of a problem to work with lime-based mortar etc. It would be difficult to estimate when the central wall will be finished, but a cautious guess at this time next year was received relatively positively – nothing definite you understand and don’t hold us to it, but........ So maybe in the summer of 2014 we can hold a real public Open Day.
Fingers crossed.
Sad to say, our bid to The Bay was rejected, but, nothing daunted we have put in another bid to United Utilities. United Utilities offers grants for community projects in areas where they are causing disruption with one of their developments, and of course the sewer improvements down by the bus station are producing fairly massive disruption, so Lancaster is on their list of places where grants are available of up to
£1000. We thought it would be particularly apposite for them to fund and/or provide guidance on the installation of standpipes in The Gardens, even though we have little idea of how much that would cost or how you might go about it
– so we’ve put in a bid

for £1000 and/or advice on the matter. It will be interesting to get their response and let’s hope it’s not too dismissive. The deadline for the bids is 18 August, so we won’t hear until end of August at the earliest. The recent rain has temporarily lessened the imperative for standpipes but you never know when drought conditions may strike again.
Sad to say it won’t be possible to have The Gardens included in the Heritage Open
Days programme. Venues are of course advertised nationally and large numbers of visitors would be anticipated, probably more than we could reasonably manage. In addition the Health and Safety problems in The Gardens mean that visitors would not actually be able to see very much and would go away with dashed expectations and a negative experience
– not the sort of outcomes we really want. By next year however we might be in a much stronger position to apply to be on the national schedule.
Plans are now firming up for the Public View Day as part of the design consultation process. Please note the date of Saturday 12 October in your diaries
– the agreed date to open up The Gardens for the Public View Day. We plan to start publicising it from the end of September through as much of the local media as possible and with displays in
The Storey for members of the public to have a look at before the actual open session.
We hope as many people as possible will come along to the Public View Day where there will be design ideas on view, information sheets setting out progress so far on The
Gardens and questionnaires available for them to give us their ideas and comments.
Because consultation is the main purpose of the event, we don’t intend to run it as a fundraiser, although plant and other garden produce could be on sale, as well as membership promotion.
Once the Public View Day is over we would hope to move the design display to another accessible venue, perhaps the local library, or an empty shop, and link that in to a questionnaire drop around the locality – volunteers needed please. This should result in

a reasonably far-reaching set of responses to give us a good idea of public opinion – no doubt an interesting outcome.
We will be confirming details at the August and September meetings. Please let Annie know if you can volunteer either on the day October 12 to act as a steward, or with the questionnaire drop afterwards ( anniewatson30@hotmail.com
).
During our chat with City Council people in The Gardens earlier in July the vexed question of permanent access, including access for people with mobility difficulties, was discussed and some very interesting ideas came up. It seems clear that for the foreseeable future the access will be through the Castle Park archway, with disabled access through the main Storey building via the lift. Both the archway and the lift bring the visitor out into a most uninviting area which would make anyone wonder if it is worth carrying on.
But this can all change. The area through the archway, instead of being a holding place for bins could be an information zone with maps and histories painted on the walls.
Large bare walls cry out for murals, signposting, decorative artwork, climbing plants, and flat tarmac suggests imaginative planting, seats, pieces of wooden sculpture – you name it. We could promote competitions and involve schools and other community groups – we could have the zingiest approach route you ever did see.
Watch this space for more ideas
– or write in with any creative approaches to the access route which may occur to you.

The next Work Session is on Sunday 4 August, 2-4; and the next business meeting is on Tuesday 27 August, 6.00pm at NICE.
The next Newsletter will be out the weekend of 1 September and copy should be sent to
Sue on sueandmart@o2.co.uk
by Friday 23 August.