Penge Green Gym Newsletter April 2015

Penge Green Gym Newsletter        Dear Penge Green Gym Supporters     Lots to do now spring is here! As the bulbs come into their own and the days are getting longer (if not any warmer!) all hands are on deck to start the process of getting the park ready for summer and especially our open day on Sunday June 14th.  Many of the hedges and larger bushes have been given a good hair cut which makes the park look very neat and tidy and the park is already full of colour. Sadly, we have had some very serious vandalism over the last month with the fence to the growing area being knocked down and many of the panels of the greenhouse being kicked in.  And along with the damage, once again, to the fence around the wildflower meadow it has been a very disheartening time.  We have however, (with the help of the council in providing funds to replace some fence posts) now repaired the fence and put the greenhouse back together.  We can only hope that the vandals don't return.  And we hope to engage the local people to help us to keep an eye on the park. Now that the greenhouse is repaired we have sown hundreds of seeds and are very quickly seeing them poke their heads up through the compost!  It is a joy to see new growth where there was once destruction. We have also been busy building new cold frames and shelves which will be needed as the plants mature and get ready to be planted out.  A special thank you to Barry for all his hard work.   2nd Birthday On 1st April Penge Green Gym celebrated its 2nd birthday as an independent group.  We celebrated in our favourite way with some cakes (thank you Tom and Electra) and a nice cup of tea!     Easyfundraising   You can still also use Easyfundraising is an easy and free way to support the Penge Green Gym.  When you buy items on the internet from well known shops such as John Lewis and Amazon, you can sign up to Easyfunding and they will donate a percentage to Penge Green Gym.  To sign up, go to www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/pengegreengym.  You can also help by downloading the easfundraising christmas pack and print of posters and flyers and add our name.

We're in Issue 35 of the Transmitter

The Transmitter Issue 35

February Newsletter

See what's happening in Penge this week....

Penge Green Gym Newsletter        Dear Penge Green Gym Supporters     New T-shirts for The Penge Green Gym  Penge Green Gym is very excited to unveil its very own t-shirt.  We'd especially like to thank Dave Fergusson, one of our volunteers who walked 270 miles of the Pennine Way to raise the money for these t-shirts.  There will be no missing us now!   January and early February have brought downpours, heavy frosts and windy weather.  We have all been wrapped up very warm whilst carrying out much needed maintenance in the park.  Many of the bushes have had a good hair cut and the borders have been edged giving the park a very neat and tidy appearance.     In preparation for a new 'woodland walk' we have resighted our insect hotels and made a start on clearing the area.  We have also finished a new bench near the child's play area which is a real sun trap and a new cold frame has been built to take this years batch of young plants. Brenda has been busy creating willow structures to support young plants and protect strawberries from the birds.     Good News From Waitrose Thanks to the kind shoppers of Waitrose we will given £246 as part of Waitrose' Good Causes programme.  Many thanks to everyone who grabbed a handful of green tokens!   Spring is slowly peeping through The crocuses, snowdrops and other bulbs are slowly poking through the frosty ground.  It was even warm enough for a bee to make (possibly a little prematurely) a foray out in the sunshine last Wednesday.  We are excited to see the results of our bulb planting programme at the end of last year.       Easyfundraising   You can still also use Easyfundraising is an easy and free way to support the Penge Green Gym.  When you buy items on the internet from well known shops such as John Lewis and Amazon, you can sign up to Easyfunding and they will donate a percentage to Penge Green Gym.  To sign up, go to www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/pengegreengym.  You can also help by downloading the easfundraising christmas pack and print of posters and flyers and add our name.

This Week in Winsford Gardens

 We have been doing some Winter pruning.

 Winter is a great time to prune many of your trees and shrubs to keep them healthy and attractive.

  


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Penge Green Gym Newsletter December 2014

See what's happening in Penge this week....

Penge Green Gym Newsletter        Dear Penge Green Gym Supporters     Seasons greetings from Winsford Gardens Winter is in full swing and the temperatures have dipped accordingly.  Our last couple of sessions before Christmas turned out to be very busy ones as were unexpectedly offered a variety of bulbs from the MPGA under their 'bulbs for London' initiative.  In all we recieved nearly 700 bulbs, including Alliums, Hyacinths, Narcissi and Daffodils.  All the bulbs were kindly donated by Taylors.   The urban orchard became a patchwork of square holes as we peeled back the turf and planted the bulbs.  It was back-breaking work but hopefully worth it when they pop up the springtime!   Shop at Waitrose Beckenham in January!! We have been chosen by Waitrose for the second time to be part of their 'good causes' campaign in January.  So hopefully you will remember from last time that you can pick up the green tokens at the check-out and put them in the relevant perspex box.  A little trick is if you don't have much shopping you can go to the self service check out and they have pots of the tokens where you can take as many as you like.  The more tokens we get the more money they will give us. So happy shopping!   Other Work at Winsford  Amongst all the hard work we managed to have our Christmas BBQ which we all very much enjoyed, especially the mulled wine and burgers! We also completed the 3rd bench at the Garden Road entrance of the garden.  We will all enjoy having somewhere to sit when we have our tea and hopefully the public will make use of it too! One of our volunteers took a course in fruit tree pruning and so our urban orchard had it's first pruning which will make the trees (pear, quince, plum etc) strong and healthy for the spring. We have also pruned back many of the unrulier plants and generally given the bushes a good short, back and sides which also had the added bonus of giving us more space in the borders to plant bulbs.   Looking forward to 2015   Our first day back will be Wednesday 7th January. The committee has been busy submitting entries to a number of award schemes including Keep Britain Tidy Diamond Jubilee Partnership Award; City of London Growing Localities award scheme; and planning to submit an entry to Green Flag Community Award in the new year.   All of these awards will help to bring to fruition projects that we are planning for the new year. They include a woodland walk behind the wildflower meadows and new composting bays in the growing area. We still wait to hear from the council whether we will lose a section of the growing area to the next door development.  If we don't then we can proceed with plans for a composting toilet.       Easyfundraising   You can still also use Easyfundraising is an easy and free way to support the Penge Green Gym.  When you buy items on the internet from well known shops such as John Lewis and Amazon, you can sign up to Easyfunding and they will donate a percentage to Penge Green Gym.  To sign up, go to www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/pengegreengym.  You can also help by downloading the easfundraising christmas pack and print of posters and flyers and add our name.

See what's happening in Penge this week....

Penge Green Gym Newsletter      Dear Penge Green Gym Supporters     Exciting new additions to the Winsford Gardens roses Local people who enjoy walking through the park have always admired the formal rose beds that give the gardens it's character.  Two of the beds always give year round colour.  We often see a rose or two still blooming into December.  But the third rose bed had been sadly neglected and overrun with ivy and other creeping weeds.  But thanks to a grant from the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association and some hard work from our volunteers we have now planted 25 hybrid roses.  We are excited to see how they spring to life next year.     A busy time, cleaning, spreading and cutting A group of volunteers spent a morning at Hevers meadows cutting willow whips for using as fences and other useful willow structures. And thanks to the generosity of the Landscape Group and Greenfields Wood Waste Solutions we have received donations of soil improver and woodchip respectively.  They have now been spread over the beds and our flowers will greatly benefit from these additions.  We'd like to thank both companies for their generous help. The council also sent a trailer so that we could remove all hard cuttings that couldn't been recycled in the garden. We have also taken the opportunity of an empty greenhouse to give it a good clean.  Hopefully all sheltering slugs and snails have been given their marching orders and so next years succulent seedlings will have a chance to grow!     Easyfundraising   Will you be shopping online for Christmas?  Easyfundraising is an easy and free way to support the Penge Green Gym.  When you buy items on the internet from well known shops such as John Lewis and Amazon, you can sign up to Easyfunding and they will donate a percentage to Penge Green Gym.  To sign up, go to www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/pengegreengym.  You can also help by downloading the easfundraising christmas pack and print of posters and flyers and add our name.

October Newsletter

See what's happening in Penge this week....

Penge Green Gym Newsletter      Dear Penge Green Gym Supporters     Visitors and prizes for Winsford Gardens A few weeks ago we were very excited to collaborate with Project Dirt in welcoming a group of corporate volunteers to Winsford Gardens.  The lovely staff of Dentsu Aegis came with great enthusiasm and helped us start our wildlife meadow fence which we had decided to rebuild in a more sturdy fashion.  They also helped with clearing the wildflower meadow of plant matter in preparation for the winter and other tasks.  Many thanks to Project Dirt and Denstu Aegis for making the day a great success.     Bromley in Bloom and Penge in Bloom Thanks to all the hard work of our army of volunteers we were awarded 3rd place at Bromley in Blooms 'Best Community Ornamental Project' and 2 awards from Penge in Bloom for 'Most ecologically friendly garden or plot and 'Most interesting residential/community area'. Thank you to Alexander Nurseries for the presentation.  Well done everyone!   In Other News     We now have all of our urban orchard signs up and the area looks very smart.  We have also splashed out on some rocks to edge the bog garden with and it now looks well defined and finished.  We have also received a load of soil improver from the council and will be spreading it over the beds to keep them warm for winter.   Easyfundraising   Easyfundraising is an easy and free way to support the Penge Green Gym.  When you buy items on the internet from well known shops such as John Lewis and Amazon, you can sign up to Easyfunding and they will donate a percentage to Penge Green Gym.  To sign up, go to www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/pengegreengym.  You can also help by downloading the easfundraising christmas pack and print of posters and flyers and add our name.