This year, 8 friends old and new joined us in the garden for our late August working holiday. This wonderfully committed, and at times muddy, sweaty and glowing crew, weeded, lifted, edged, dug out, separated, cleared, deadheaded, stacked, and much much more.  On the stats side each volunteer offered a minimum of 4 hours a day so over the 6 days around 192 hours of gardening was completed.  The list below gives some idea of all that was achieved and it was very gratifying that many of the guests and visitors who saw us at work commented on how well the garden was looking.

• the yew hedge that runs along the car park was cleared of ivy and can breathe again;
• the long border, seen from the back of the house, was cleared of weeds and space created for the shrubs planted last autumn to grow into;
• daffodil bulbs were lifted, split and replanted so they had more room;
• the borders around the front and back of the house were weeded, flowering plants dead headed or lifted;
• box hedges were trimmed;
• the long border in the walled garden had a serious haircut with much clearing and refreshing of the ground;
• the dahlias were deadheaded;
• runner beans were harvested and the bean plants encouraged to stand up again after strong winds brought their support canes to the ground;
• courgettes were harvested;
• flower beds were weeded and some existing plants split and planted to cover gaps in the planting;
• the additional feature dandelions were removed from the new strawberry bed;
• garden produce was carefully sampled at dinner

The prize for the most extraordinary event of the week went to Megan who showed Olympian strength while working on the long border and sheared through the metal neck of one of the forks…