Well, we couldn’t have asked for better weather for our first week back ‘on the ground’ at Honeywood. The sun shone throughout, with sessions from Tuesday to Friday. It was lovely to see everyone in person, rather than on screen during our fortnightly online sessions that we’d been having since January. Old friends met, and introductions were made in person.
 
The weeds had been enjoying a respite during lockdown, and were just beginning to put on a fresh spurt of growth, so it was a very good time to be able to restart. An encouraging amount of progress was made, both in the back and front gardens. We are scheduling weekly morning and afternoon sessions from now on, so progress will continue, and looking forward to the time when we will be able to invite the group to be able to all come together, rather than in smaller groups.
 
Work has started on clearing planting areas, with these varying from surface weeds to brambles and some scrub. We have been careful to avoid areas where birds may have set up home and built their nests.
 
Some of the Edwardian burr-brick planting area retaining walls have already begun to reappear, allowing for further investigation and recording.
 
An interesting detail emerged during the clearance of the bed in the southeast corner of the garden next to the Pound Street wall. I thought that the whole bed was edged with burr-brick (overburnt brick). However, it appears that this only applies to the eastern end next to the sheds area. The other end is edged with flint. This suggests that the bed has been extended at some point. Not very significant in itself but as we learn more it may fit into a bigger picture.
 
Overall a very successful few days; we couldn’t have asked for a better start.

After months of anticipation, frustration and sometimes doubting it would ever happen we actually started work on the garden today. It was a small start because the current COVID rules mean that we can only have a few people on site at any one time.

Some parts of the garden are terribly overgrown, but others were not as bad as I feared. The Council’s contractor has cut the grass fairly recently and some areas that were cleared in the winter of 2019-20 had only partly grown back. The most overgrown areas will have to wait until the autumn so as not to risk disturbing nesting birds, but this still leaves large areas that can be worked on. There are three more work sessions this week so I will post a progress report on Friday.

The northwest corner looking towards Festival Walk. The bed was largely cleared in the winter of 2019-20. I feared that I would find in in a much worst state than this.

​The pond and little grotto are so overgrown that they are hardly visible.