August News from the Garden
Hi Everyone,
Welcome to the SJG newsletter.
BIG NEWS EVERYONE: WE'VE WON A GREEN FLAG AWARD!!!!!!
A massive THAAAANK YOU to everyone who helped prepare for the Green Flag judges visit back in June - they were super impressed with our care for plants and pollinators, varied programme of community events, carefully tended dead hedges and ambitious plans for Farringdon's First Edible Forest, our hidden histories interpretation boards and not-so-hidden bee and bug hotels. Winning a green flag is a huge accolade and something we can all be really proud of achieving together! If you're reading this and thinking you'd like to be part of our watering crew this summer, or would like to get involved with the Community Orchard we're hoping to plant next Spring, or if you'd enjoy quietly counting birds or butterflies while you're in the garden, please stop reading right now, reply 'I'm in!' to this mail and we can chat through what you'd most enjoy doing to help out. Your garden needs you! And with that in mind...
Our next COMMUNITY GARDENING session is Saturday 2nd August, 10am-12 noon
Come and join us in St John's Garden as we hoist the Green Flag onto the railings, mulch the top beds, water the native hedgerows, sweep paths, prune selected shrubs, conduct a Big Butterfly Count, demo FIT counts, and get some new plants in the ground. What would YOU like to see planted in our woodland garden next weekend? Reply to this mail if you have a planting idea you'd like to make a reality on 2 August! Everyone is welcome and there's something for everyone to do - no gardening experience needed, just sturdy footwear and a bottle of water to keep you hydrated. We'll have home baked pastries and hot chocolate to celebrate our Green Flag win so bring your camping cup.
Echinacea flowers are in bloom this month! Photo courtesy of Azadeh.
Health and Wellness in the Garden
We all know about the phenomenal physical, mental and collective health benefits of being in nature and we're lucky to have some brilliant partners who help us make the most of the St John's Garden for health and wellbeing activities.
So first off a big thank you to Marco Wilson, our Qi Gong instructor for the month of June! He was excellent at guiding our group through the moves and helping us focus on posture and ‘movement in stillness’. It was a beautiful way to start the week under the canopy in the garden. We hope to see him again in the future, but if you or your organisation are interested in working with a Qi Gong instructor, we can highly recommend Marco! You can reach him through his website here.
Massive thanks to Adam at Movement Labs too! As well as helping to tidy up the garden ahead of London in Bloom judging last month, Adam has been making our neighbourhood stronger for several months now, with his Neighbourhood Strength and conditioning sessions held every Tuesday morning, 9am-9.30am at the Movement Labs studio in CowCross Yards. These free sessions are designed for all levels of fitness and are enjoyable as well as effective! No need to sign up, just come along and give it a try.
In September, we welcome Silva Wellness to St John's Garden, where their Briset St practitioners will be breezing down to the garden to lead a season of free Sound Bath Guided Meditation Sessions on Thursday mornings in September, 8.30am-9am. No experience or equipment needed and no need to sign up in advance - just wear comfy clothes and look forward to a relaxing and grounding start to the day. Attached poster has contact details in case you want to reach out to them with any questions in advance.
Talking of posters ... you might have noticed that the Literary Clerkenwell: Guided Walk posters have been removed from the Welcome Board; due to unforeseen circumstances, we've had to cancel Saturday's walk, and we'll let you know when a new date is scheduled in September.
Latest News from the Clerkenwell Pollinator Path Project
As part of our commitment to restoring nature in the neighbourhood and connecting with all the other amazing green spaces in our area, St John's Garden is working with ecological charity Pollinating London Together to coordinate pollinator ecologist surveys across 15 green spaces in Clerkenwell. As part of the project, head gardener Justin at The Charterhouse very kindly offered us an exclusive tour of The Charterhouse Gardens, where we were inspired by all the pollinator-friendly planting and learnt how each of us can contribute to pollinator data sets by conducting ten minute Flower-Insect-Timed pollinator counts (FIT-Counts) in our gardens and green spaces. Tickets were snapped up within a few hours so if there's anyone who is still wanting to learn how to do a 10-min Flower-Insect-Timed Count, come along to St John's Garden on 2 August from 10am-12pm for a demo. In other news, 2 of the 4 surveys have now been conducted and the new Quentin Blake House of Illustration has joined the project as our 15th site - very exciting to welcome a new wildlife garden to the project and the neighbourhood :)
Cool Composting Opportunity
Following the success of the SJG Compost Collective, we're off to Mildmay Community Food Project for a two-part composting workshop in their community market garden, to explore the potential for expanding our composting operations! The hands-on workshops - hosted exclusively for SJG - will take place on August 4th & 5th, 5.30-7.30pm. If you'd like to join the sessions (free of charge), mail us at stjohnsgarden.ec1@gmail.com :)