It was a brisk and blustery one in Danson Park on Saturday, but that didn’t stop the team from getting stuck in. Robert and I were especially pleased to welcome two new GoodGym Bexley members, Zara and Ian, to their very first task — and what a great one to start with!

As part of our ongoing collaboration with the brilliant Friends of Danson Park, we rolled up our sleeves to help make our beloved park even more beautiful (and biodiverse!), as we got involved in planting around 300 plugs of Yellow Rattle in the rock garden.

If you haven’t come across Yellow Rattle before, it’s a bit of a quiet hero. By drawing nutrients from dominant grasses, it helps create space for wildflowers to thrive, boosting biodiversity and providing a valuable nectar source for pollinators. A small plant with a big impact!

The ground, however, had other ideas… with no rain recently, the soil had turned impressively stubborn. So much so that Ian, in a heroic first-task effort, managed to break a trowel while trying to get those plugs in the ground 💪🌱. (Don’t worry — we’ve got photographic evidence.) Safe to say, he passed his GoodGym initiation with flying colours!

Despite the chilly wind, spirits were high, tools (mostly) survived, and it was fantastic to see new faces getting involved from the get-go.

Huge thanks to everyone who came along, and a big welcome again to Zara and Ian. Hope this is the first of many tasks with us!