Chelsea Digger

Although we might have not have been to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, GoodGym still got to attend… to help Myeloma UK pack up and dismantle their ‘A Life Worth Living’ garden, which has been on display during the show.

Although we do a lot of gardening tasks with GoodGym, this one was a little different. First of all, we were provided with high viz and steel cap boots as per health and safety on the site, and we all got our own access passes too. If that doesn’t make you feel professional, what does?! We also made sure we had plenty of water and suncream, as we didn’t want any one to get sun-fern or de-hydrangea-ated. Flower powered up, we were ready to get going.

There were various tasks to be getting on with, but the three main jobs were:

• Digging up the plants from the garden and repotting them so they could be taken away

• Preparing trolleys and trays for the plants to go on, and loading the potted plants onto them

• Watering and wrapping the plants on the trolleys, ready to be taken away to their new home.

A lot of the task was ‘organised chaos’, but we stem-braced the challenge, and were happy to grow with the flow (especially Ishan who made a new best friend in the hose pipe!). It wasn’t just the physical side of us that got a work out, as we had to problem solve and reload a few trolleys to make sure all the plants fit! We could have lost the pot, but working with fronds we were re-leafed to get the task completed.

It was bloom-ing interesting to see how they packed away, and how hard you have to work to look after these plants. A reward for our endeavours, we were soiled for choice with some complimen-tree sweet treats, and a few wonderful bouquets that would otherwise have gone for composting.

A tree-mendous task on a bee-autiful day. We just plant get enough!