SPRING 2019 The Walled Garden › 2019 › ... · 2019-05-20 · 3 THE WALLED GARDEN SPRING 2019...
Transcript of SPRING 2019 The Walled Garden › 2019 › ... · 2019-05-20 · 3 THE WALLED GARDEN SPRING 2019...
Registered Charity number 1176172
S P R I N G 2 0 1 9
Welcome to the latest issue of our newsletter. As the weather slowly warms up, we are getting on with sowing and growing new plants for the coming seasons and for our longer term planting plans. We have a busy year ahead, aiming to complete the hard landscaping and to start putting in the permanent beds. We are also actively trying out new ways to encourage people to visit and volunteer with a new calendar of events and activities. Read on for more information.
Green Flag Assessment
Come and see how the garden is progressing with activities for all the family.
Free entry.
Welcome
In this Issue
Spring Diary
20th May 2019
Newsletter of the Friends of Llanfrechfa Grange Walled Garden
The Walled Garden
• Welcome • Spring diary • Garden design news • Summer events
calendar • Have a Grow Day • Remembering Peter
Kelly • Hospital build news • News in brief • Grow Wild Winners • Contact Us
"Have a Grow" Open Day
1st June 2019
Walled Garden to be judged by Keep Wales Tidy for the Green Flag Award. Fingers crossed!
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SPRING 2019 THE WALLED GARDEN
Registered Charity number 1176172
Northwest quadrant work plan
Southwest quadrant design In our autumn issue we reported how the design for the southwest quadrant of the garden was developing. Since then we have worked up some more of the detail for the design with our Garden Design Team. We have added some cherry trees to the northern edge of the lawn for height, colour and shade. The detail for the oriental garden has also been developed in terms of layout and the types of plants to include. We are planning to seek the advice of the Japanese Garden Society before finalising the design. A few further adjustments to the shape of the beds along the north / south path will allow an area for growing a display of dye and physic plants. Advice on dye plants will be sought from the Gwent Guild of Dyers, Weavers and Spinners and we plan to visit the Physic Garden in Cowbridge for further inspiration.
Garden design news
The northwest quadrant of the garden is going to be our biggest project over the coming year. This is planned to be the reflective, sensory garden. So far, we have cleared, leveled and rotovated the ground. We have also been marking out the dimensions and route for the little twisting paths and seating areas that will make this area a quiet, calming space for visitors who want to enjoy some time out for contemplation. We hope to be able to install the paths and water feature over the summer months. Volunteers to help with this would be most welcome. Please keep an eye on our Facebook page and website for call-‐outs.
Dye plant Alkanna matthioli. Source: Barnaba Marinosci
Latest draft of the design for the southwest quadrant.
Dye plant Indigofera tinctoria. Source: Pancrat [CC BY-‐SA 3.0]
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SPRING 2019 THE WALLED GARDEN
Registered Charity number 1176172
Saturday 1st June, 10.00 - 4 .00 p.m. An opportunity to see how we are developing the Walled Garden and learn some new horticultural skills. We will have a number of displays, activities and demonstrations going on, including:
• Hands on seed sowing • Up-cycling your plastic waste for the garden • Plants for sale • Refreshments
• Art in the Garden activity • All Creatures Great & Small Petting Corner • Craft items for sale • Free entry
A fun day out for all the family.
Summer Events Calendar
Thurs 9th May 2 - 4 pm Garden Design Team workshop
Sat 1st June 10 - 4 pm Have a Grow open day - Free entry (see details below)
Mon 22nd July 2 - 4 pm Meeting of the Trustees
Mon 29th July 2 - 6 pm Annual General Meeting - Friends of Llanfrechfa Grange Walled Garden and Open day
Mon 19th Aug 1 - 4 pm Volunteers Social - BBQ
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SPRING 2019 THE WALLED GARDEN
Registered Charity number 1176172
Born at the Grange - Remembering Peter Kelly A fond farewell to the late Peter Kelly, one of our regular visitors with a very special connection to
Llanfrechfa Grange Walled Garden
Born in 1928 in the Gardener's Cottage at Llanfrechfa Grange, Peter Kelly was the third child of the resident Head Gardener in the days when the Grange was still a private mansion. Peter got in touch with the Walled Garden project in 2015 following an article in the South Wales Argus. We have since spent many enjoyable hours listening to his amazingly detailed memories of the Grange, which he called his ‘childhood playground’.
Peter described the crop rotation his father used in the garden, the fruit trees that clothed the walls, a huge rhubarb patch and the many glass houses on the outside – all long since gone. He told hair-‐raising tales of running around the top of the walls; of attending services in the chapel with his mother; and playing by the huge rhododendron that still grows behind the house.
Left: Peter with his mother and brother John at Gardener’s Cottage, Llanfrechfa Grange, May 1941. Above: Plan of the Walled Garden drawn by Jan Smith based on Peter’s memories. Right: Peter with regular volunteer Graham Wookey, 2017.
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SPRING 2019 THE WALLED GARDEN
Registered Charity number 1176172
One of his favourite stories was telling us how at the age of 8, he shook hands with King Edward VIII who visited the Grange in 1936 when it was used as a Domestic Training Centre for unemployed boys. In 2018 he again made a royal connection when the Lord Lieutenant for Gwent, Brigadier Robert Aitken CBE, visited the garden -‐ a special day for all of us.
Peter Kelly died peacefully on 6th March after a short illness. Always cheerful he was a very special man indeed and will be remembered with great fondness. His contributions to our history of Llanfrechfa Grange are priceless and for that we will be forever in his dept. Rest in peace Peter.
Peter served in the armed forces before returning to the Grange after WW2 as an ambulance driver. The Grange was then a maternity hospital and Peter helped deliver many of the babies born there.
During one of Peter's visits, Jan Smith showed him inside Grange House. He recalled that the entrance hall had been two rooms with a conservatory off the inner room. When the Grange was used as a maternity hospital, the Committee room was the ward where mothers and babies slept; the Boardroom was the dining room and the Library the Matron’s office. The delivery room was further down the corridor, in the servants’ quarters, and beyond there, the kitchens. He remembered there was a huge stove set into an alcove where the Victorian fireplace had previously been. He was delighted to see that the chapel was still there and clearly moved by the visit said ‘You have made an old man very happy’.
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SPRING 2019 THE WALLED GARDEN
Registered Charity number 1176172
Grange University Hospital building progress With the new hospital scheduled to open in just two years’ time, it has recently reached an important new milestone with a 'Topping Out' ceremony to mark completing the highest point of the building.
Vaughan Gething AM, Minister for Health and Social Services, was recently welcomed to the Grange University Hospital to mark the "Topping Out" of the building with a concrete pour. In front of an invited audience that included the construction team from Laing O’Rourke together with representatives and staff from the Health Board, he said “It’s fantastic to see another landmark being reached in this state-‐of-‐the-‐art project." Judith Paget, Chief Executive of the Health Board, thanked all the staff and construction partners involved in the project and said: “The Grange University Hospital represents a key milestone in our Clinical Futures Programme – our plan to deliver NHS health services that are of the highest quality." Ann Lloyd CBE, Chair of the Health Board added ”One of my first official engagements as Chair of the Health Board was to attend the cutting of the first sod ceremony in July 2017. We have come a long way since then and just 20 months later, The Grange University Hospital is almost built.”
Topping Out
The Project Team at The Grange University Hospital site is busy equipping two sample bedrooms -‐ one standard and one bariatric -‐ to provide a quality baseline and to enable them to demonstrate their size and how allocated equipment will fit into the space. Some areas are also being painted and fitted with plugs and bedhead trunking (see picture), ready to be checked and handed over for inspection. With more than two thousand rooms to quality check, this will be an ongoing process for the next year and one that the Project Team takes very seriously.
Kitting Out
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SPRING 2019 THE WALLED GARDEN
Registered Charity number 1176172
Volunteers from the Llanfrechfa Grange Walled Garden were delighted to represent the project at an award ceremony at St Peter's Community Garden, Cardiff on Weds 20th March 2019. The awards by Social Farms and Gardens recognise local communities who manage green spaces. The Walled Garden was one of 12 communities from across Wales to be celebrated and presented with certificates from the Deputy Minister for Housing and Local Government, Hannah Blythyn AM.
Wilko Donation We are grateful to Wilko for their generous donation of non-‐saleable goods over the last 12 months. These have included broken bags of compost, dented tins of wood stain and other garden sundries. Compost is always welcome, the shed is now protected in a lovely shade of green and we have a few seats ready to place in the reflective quadrant.
News in Brief Achievements
A big thank you to everyone who turned up to volunteer for our working party weekend on 6-‐7 April. We were lucky with the weather and managed to get a lot done in the time.
Despite the short notice, 9 people turned up on Saturday and 3 on Sunday. Between us we sorted stones for building walls, primed and painted up some ironwork tree grills, filled in sections of trenches to bury the power and water cables and potted on some seedlings.
Please contact us (details back page) if you are interested in volunteering for a future working party.
Community Managed Green Spaces Award
Working Party weekend Our volunteers Graham and Brian have taken
the lead on building a new retaining wall and steps between the Therapeutic Horticulture greenhouse and shed and the area that will become our cafe area. This is in the southeast "social" quadrant. The upper section is meanwhile being cleared of rubble and levelled ready for landscaping.
Landscaping Works
Friends of Llanfrechfa Grange Walled Garden, Llanfrechfa Grange, Cwmbran, Torfaen, NP44 8YN
Email: [email protected] Website: https://llanfrechfawalledgarden.wordpress.com/
Or on Facebook at llanfrechfa grange walled garden
Grow Wild Winners
Our young gardeners have won a £500 ‘Grow Wild’ Youth Project award! Supported by the National Lottery Community Fund, ‘Grow Wild’ is a national outreach initiative of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The youngsters have called their project 'Granting Flower Power' and plan to find, photograph and identify wild flowers and fungi and to produce a poster and prints to share their work. They also want to sow wild flower seeds for our wildlife patch. Glyn Matthews from Growing Space, our chairman Jan Smith, and professional wild life photographers Chris and Karen Hatch will support the project. The young team will learn about flowers and fungi and gain photography, research, team working and presentation skills. For more information about the scheme, please visit https://www.growwilduk.com/
Contact Us
THE WALLED GARDEN SPRING 2019
Registered Charity number 1176172