Last night we made a return to the garden of the Highfield Unit after a 2 year hiatus. The Highfield is the young people's mental health in-patient unit at Warneford Hospital. Some of the garden has recently been redesigned into a much more inviting space, which was lovely to see.

The garden is divided into 3 sections, so we divided into a trio of teams to weed, prune and lop. We weeded and pruned outside the dining room to give a clearer view of the lovely new garden design, lopped bramble and pulled up nettles in the mosaic garden, and weeded and pruned the shaded corridor space outside some of the bedrooms.

We amassed a large pile of clippings and prunings and worked up a bit of a sweat, so were grateful for the water and biscuits we were given at the end.

Welcome to GoodGym Catriona (Kitty).

Last night we were asked to return to Cotswold House Eating Disorder Unit to work on the garden. The unit has a pretty courtyard garden filled with aromatic herbs, lavendar and buddleia. It's nicely thought out, with treats for the eyes and the nose, as well as being full of plants which pollinators love. Last year we did a couple of gardening sessions to keep the weeds at bay and as the weather starts to warm up it was high time we returned to give the garden a once-over before the weeds take hold. The pots and planters had been planted up with pansies since out last visit - lovely and cheery - and a general prune of the larger shrubs had obviously been done recently. That meant we didn't need to tackle too much bamboo and could focus on weeding between the paving, digging out long grass encroaching on the borders, and some light pruning and trimming of last year's dead growth to allow the newly emerging shoots to get light and space.

An hour flew by - it's easy to lose track of time when you're busy!

Cotswold House is an award winning specialist adult eating disorders service provided by Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust. There are 2 two modern eating disorders units in Oxford and Marlborough, Wiltshire. After our day trip to Marlborough to tidy up the garden of the Cotswold House there we were recommende to Oxford site too. Et voila! Cotswold House take 2!

After some minor faffing trying to get the garden gates open, we soon got to work in the walled garden. The Warneford Hospital site is large but only has a very small gardening team, so it's difficult for them to lavish lots of attention on weeding and pruning. The Cotswold House garden used to be looked after by a keen volunteer gardener, but recently it has got a bit overgrown, so secateurs and pruning saws in hand we started to tackle the job.

This turned into one of the most fragrant garden tasks we've ever had, as we lopped back sage (who knew sage grows into a whole woody shrub if you let it?!), rosemary, lavender, and buddleia. Jessy and Sarah did great work clearing a bench from under a tangle of bamboo and roses - looked beautiful in a wild kinda way, but not great for accessing the seat! Others pruned, weeded, and sawed, amassing a large pile of trimmings and weeds. Wheelbarrow crew trekked across the site to dispose of most of it on the big compost heap near the meadow, but there was a small amount left in the garden to be collected another time.

There was even time for a bit of ping pong before we left the garden.

Good work team!

Thanks to our Run Leaders for their help - Ben for leading the run up to Warneford Hospital, and Bethan for coordinating a longer run after the task.

Welcome to GoodGym Joe - lovely to meet you!

In a change of activity for a Monday evening we met for an evening of apple picking at the Warneford orchard instead of our usual Monday walk.

We stretched and climbed, and used some expert hand-eye coordination to loop apples down with litter pickers (surprisingly good for this task!) and apple picking poles. The apples were a mix of eaters and cookers, and should make a delicious blend for juice.

We filled 3.5 crates with apples, which will be pressed into apple juice and sold to benefit Warneford Hospital.

Welcome to Oxford Kieran - good to meet you!

The garden at the Highfield unit is looking WAY less bramble infested now after our regular work over the spring and summer. This last evening visit of the summer (and of the year!) was an opportunity for a good tidy-up before autumn sets in.

Weeding, raking, nettle pulling, and - of course - bramble lopping were the tasks of the night. We even found buried treasure as we unearthed some teeny tiny potatoes. We replanted them in hopes of a full crop next year.

Side note: only at GoodGym would the declaration "I found a potato!" receive the reply "What? another one?!".

Several of wheelbarrow loads of weeds and grass cuttings were removed, ideas discussed for perennials which might bring some colour to the planting next year, and we were all done before 7:30pm sunset.

We were grateful for water and juice from the ward staff - thank you!

Welcome back to Oxford Jessica L and congrats on your 10th Good Deed!

Well done on your 1st GoodGym Good Deed Jessica V.

What's that you say? Gardening in the heatwave? No problem!

We have a regular monthly task in the garden of the Highfield Unit at Warneford Hospital, and 30+ degree heat was not going to stop us keeping our appointment.

The Highfield is the young person's in-patient unit of the Warneford - the hospital providing mental health services in Oxford. The hospital has wonderful extensive grounds and a tiny team to manage them, so a little under a year ago the Highfield requested regular help from GoodGym to keep their gardens under control. It's hard enough to be an in patient (or for your child to be an in patient) so the Matron of the Unit is keen to make the environment as pleasant as possible for the young people and their care-givers. Winter lockdown meant that we weren't able to do much for them until the spring this year, but since then we've gone every month to weed, prune and wage war against brambles, and it's really starting to make a visible difference. On this visit the gardens were looking far less bramble-infested, many of the perennials were blooming, and the weeds were not nearly as abundant as last month. That said, there's still always plenty to do in any garden at this time of year, so trowels, secateurs, and wheelbarrows at the ready, we wasted no time getting dug in.

This month we were working in garden section 2 and 3 and also along the fence line to the carpark - both because we've done the least work in those areas and because they were in the shade (it's almost as if we planned our work-order knowing a heatwave was coming...). Meysam and Anne did a wonderful job lopping buddleia, brambles and rosemary away from the path through the middle garden, being careful not to be too brutal given that the rosemary and buddleia are excellent for bees and butterflies. Meanwhile the majority of the group headed to the furthest garden section to fight brambles, water the raised beds, and in a new development this month Mark brought his own hedge trimmer to prune the hedge. Finally a small breakaway party snuck round the side of the building to tidy up the area by the fence to the car park. The rooms looking out in that direction just look at the fence, and we hope to plant bulbs there in the autumn so that there's some early Spring colour in the area to improve the view. The weeds had got quite established over the last few months, so thorough weeding was needed to get a head start for our September/October planting plans.

Slightly fewer wheelbarrow loads of weeds and thorny things were transported to the compost pile this month - a testament to the work that's happened in previous months - but we still to'd and fro'd several times. As always, time seemed to speed up, and in no time at all we were needing to pack up, lock up and return the tools to the shed.

One VERY important piece of info we learnt this Wednesday - a truly scientific poll showed that Carrot Cake is the favourite cake for GoodGym Oxford. Duly noted for our next celebration!