Wed August 8th 2018 - The Riverside Centre, Newport. GG # 747.

Terry's Photographs.

Work gets underway....

New top soil/compost and the pea gravel.

Yes...it was VERY overgrown...!

Planting up the "new" flower bed.

Everyone hard at work.

Disposing of the "arisings".

Bob's Photographs.

and after we had finished!

Before work started...

It has been a couple of years since GG last worked at the Riverside Centre - and I doubt that anyone had touched the gardens since our last visit..! Everywhere you looked, the flower beds were overgrown with shrubs, weeds and bramble, truly a daunting task even for a group of hardened GGmers. So eager were we to get "stuck in" that many of the early arrivers began work by 9:30 - some 30 minutes ahead of our scheduled start time. The long bed under the restaurant windows needed particular attention as the "soil" consisted mainly of builders sand and rubble. We were tasked to chop down all the weeds, remove all the compacted sand and rubble, replace that with a mix of new soil and compost, put down weed control membrane, plant it up with new plants and then top it off with pea gravel (see before and after photographs above). Not much to do there then...! Other members of the team tackled some of the very overgrown areas along with de-weeding the paved areas around the site. I am sure that the photographs show the full extent of the work.
The long, dry, extremely hot period of weather was finally drawing to a close so we had a warm but cloudy day with just the slightest sprinkling of rain. Great conditions to be working hard in.
The Riverside staff were kind enough to supply us with bacon or sausage baps plus tea and coffee at our tea break. Needless to say this was gratefully received by all so a big thank you to everyone that was involved with the preparation.
Although a tremendous amount was achieved in a very short time, there is much more to be done around the site. There is a rumour that we might be returning sometime in October - I am sure we will all be looking forward to that :-)

Many thanks to Terry for the photographs this week.