The weed that wouldn’t ‘Cleavers’ alone!

Dave and Fi’s second mission of the day involved a trip slightly out of the city to a lovely established garden. With the help of a pair of friendly dogs, Ms B welcomed the GoodGym pair and introduced them first to the very pleasant front garden, and then to the larger garden at the back of the house.

Their task: to tackle the abundance of unwelcome weeds that had made themselves at home recently while Ms B had spent some time in hospital.

They say that an army marches on its stomach, and the pair had already refuelled with some flapjack-based snacks on the way over but gladly accepted a cup of tea offered by Ms B as they got started.

Top of Fi’s hit list were the many towering “Dandelion-on-steroids” weeds that had grown proudly during the recent fine weather. A great little trowel quickly became her secret weapon in fully uprooting the monsters that she’s still not able to identify but REALLY DISLIKES. A close second was an incredibly sticky trailing weed that has a bit-of-a rude nickname but also goes by the name of ‘Cleavers’, and informed the almost passable pun for this report’s title.

Meanwhile, as a warm-up to the mass de-weeding ahead of him, Dave had a go at fixing the handle to the garden door, but ultimately conceded that even the magic of GoodGym wasn’t going to fix this one and that Ms B may need to buy a new handle set.

Another great cuppa was enjoyed during a quick pit-stop, to assess the work so far and - perhaps more importantly - make a fuss of the friendly doggos.

As a final task, Fi rescued some Forget-me-nots from amongst the larger plants and re-homed them in a long tub that had been overrun with weeds of the less welcome variety (that may-or-may-not be called ‘Herb Robert’ - sorry to all the Roberts out there!), so that Ms B could keep some of the pleasant little flowers (the Forget-me-nots, not you, Robert!) in a more contained setting.

In the other corner of the impressive garden, and with the kind help of Ms B’s grandson, Dave cleared the remaining piles of uprooted weeds into a surprisingly spacious green garden waste bin.

A very enjoyable afternoon ended with a quick chat and goodbyes, before heading back towards Bristol for a well-earned sit down.