It's on SUNDAY!!!!

Many thanks to our friends at The Nottingham Post for the article on Musters Road Open Gardens in the Monday edition of the paper.

Not so many thanks for printing that it's taking place on Saturday!

Please come to see us and our 15 beautiful gardens from 2 pm on SUNDAY 8 September.

Please don't come on Saturday because all you will find is several bedraggled and exhausted gardeners, frantically weeding and primping their gardens (and most definitely NOT hurriedly planting last minute dahlias in full flower, just purchased from the garden centre, in a pathetic attempt to bring some colour into their drought-ridden herbaceous borders).

See you SUNDAY!

The Good Health Garden - 200 Musters Road

A hive of activity you can say; members of the West Bridgford Skills exchange, The Abundance Project Totally Locally and local residents have been dropping off apples for the apple pressing on Sunday,
lavender bags (with lavender donated by the nearby allotments) have been made a local coffee group.
Black berries and red currants appeared on the door step today, which are now bubbling away to make redcurrant jelly and blackberry cordial, cough syrups and totally locally fruity babies (as opposed to jelly babies)

Local artist Cara Holland designed a pictorial treasure hunt, to match 12 common  ailments with the remedies from the garden.  Come and find out what herb tea can help with your sore throat, stings and baldness.  

Thank you Kate for organizing the Open Gardens, so many people are looking forward to getting stuck in and raise funds for the Friary Drop In centre; 

200 Musters Road - Musters Road ‘Physic Garden' Healing starts in the garden.

Calls have been coming in to The Abundance Group 'HQ' to say that apples in the area are dropping fast.
Pickers, ladders and crates to the ready as we are off to collect the apples to press for juice at the Open Gardens.

Members of the West Bridgford Skills Exchange: have volunteered in droves to come and help, wash, clean, peel and press so that any of you who would like the fresh taste of Muster Road's abundance, can visit 200 and experience the abundance our gardens give us, be that a refreshing apple juice  or jams, cordials, and fruit sweeties made for you beforehand.

Aromatherapist, Anne Turner- Harrod has used plants from the garden to make soaps and massage oils. For those of you who would like a hand massage or hand made products like bees wax lip balm (from bees out of this garden) feel free to take a few minutes out of your visit and spoil yourself. Proceeds will go to the Friary Drop in Center.

Herbalist: Katherine Bellchambers-Wilson will be on hand to
point out the healing properties and uses of common trees, shrubs, fruit and vegetables.

Hoping that when you leave this garden, you are inspired through body and soul

Update ....

So, here we are .... two and a half weeks to go and can the gardens hold out until 8 September after this crazy year of alternating ice age/heat wave?  Here's hoping!

This year at Musters Road Open Gardens we are delighted that there will be 15 garden venues for you to enjoy - 13 private gardens, the children's gardens at Jesse Gray Primary School and The Friary's allotments on Kingston Road. 

Of the 4 new private gardens joining us this year, one is particularly interesting - it's an urban permaculture garden with many sustainable features, including the on site management of all rainfall. 4 green roofs are used for experimental food growing. This small permaculture garden is dedicated to organic food production and biodiversity - even the poo from the bunnies is used to fertilise the green beds! The owners think they have invented the first horizontal water butt and planter combo - they look forward to visitors sharing their own ingenious inventions.

We very much hope you will be able to join us on 8 September, between 2-6 pm, to check out this and our other Open Gardens - not to mention the Local History Walk, Human Jukebox, Physic Garden with on site herbalist ........ and TWO (count 'em) tea venues.  You will not go hungry.

Urban permaculture garden:
 

 

 

Ready Steady Weed!

Back from holiday, so starting to get the garden ready for opening on the 8th September

Some colour with the crocosmias - hope it's going to last.

Some massive squash - we're not sure what variety.

One of our scented geraniums.

Announcement of This Year's Event

The Musters Road Open Garden's event will be on Sunday 8th September between 2pm and 6pm.

Entry will cost the same as last year - £3 per person / £5 per couple - children are free!

HOW MUCH?!

We had a wonderful day for Musters Road Open Gardens - fantastic weather and huge numbers of visitors, many of whom commented on the great atmosphere and the friendly welcome they received from the Garden Hosts.

Most importantly, we raised £2,361 for our charity, The Friary Drop-In Centre which does valuable work with homeless people in the city.

Here are some pictures of the day to give you a flavour if you weren't able to join us.

 

Dahlias .... and a few more

 

A librarian's garden

 

Afternoon tea was VERY popular

 



 

oh ... another dahlia

 

 

Many, many thanks if you did come along and contribute to the magnificent total we raised.  We enjoyed every minute and hope you did too.

 

 

Musters Road Open Gardeners

The Numbers Are Still Coming In!

With 300+ visitors the Musters Road Open Gardens event was blessed with some wonderful September weather!

We'll keep you updated with the total amount raised - but it's definately £1,000+

A huge thank you to everyone involved - especially the waitresses at 133! And to Kate for organising the whole event in the first place...

Information about all of the gardens has now been published on this website - just click on "The Gardens" tab above...

PLEASE NOTE: WE HAVE YOUR BEST INTERESTS AT HEART AND, IN ORDER FOR YOU TO BUILD UP AN APPETITE FOR TEA AT NO. 133 (OR TO BURN OFF WHAT YOU’VE ALREADY CONSUMED) THERE IS AN APPROXIMATE 10 MINUTE WALK BETWEEN NOs 39 & 43 AND THE REMAINING GARDENS.

Run, walk, cycle, drive or wheel yourself — or make it more interesting by joining Peter Hammond of West Bridgford Local History Society on a guided walk of this stretch of Musters Road (approx. 45 mins).

Walk 1 leaves The Friary at 2.45 pm

Walk 2 returns from the corner of Devonshire Rd at 4.30 pm.

Peter will bring to life some local history specific to the road and its role in West Bridgford’s development...

Apple Pressing at 200 Musters Road

A few years ago we set up the Abundance Group , especially when we found out that there were so many apple, pear, plum and cherry trees planted around us in Musters Road.
The idea behind the project is that if anyone has a fruit tree that needs harvesting, we come as a group to pick your fruit, give to you what you want, tidy up and take the rest with us to divide up. Some will go to the pickers, some of it will go to people who will turn it into jams, chutneys, pies, juices etc and some will go to the Abundance shop on Clumber Road. (help yourselves but please leave a donation)

The apples this year are not very good and plentiful as the spring was very wet and the bees have therefore not been able to pollinate the blossom very well. We do have a variety of apples donated by local people, which we will turn into juice for you to try. We will put the freshly pressed juice into sterilised bottles (donated by Taste on Clumber Road) so you can take a bottle home with you. Any donations will go to the Friary Drop in Centre.

History Walks by Peter Hammond

On the day we have organised 2 guided local history walks from The Friary to the corner of Devonshire Rd, and back again. Peter Hammond of the West Bridgford History Society is extremely well informed about WB's history and the walks will take 30/45 mins. The first walk, leaving The Friary, will leave at 2.45 pm, and the return walk, leaving the corner of Devonshire Rd and going back to The Friary, will leave at 4.30

The final countdown!

With just over 2 weeks to go we can announce that we have 12 gardens opening along Musters Road for Open Gardens on Sunday 9 September - including the children's raised vegetable beds at Jesse Gray School and The Friary's allotment on Kingstson Road (just off Musters Road, alongside no. 200).  There will also be one garden dedicated to children's games and activities (including a pedal-powered smoothie maker!).  Several of the open gardens will have plant, book and CD stalls and there will be afternoon teas available too.  What more could you possibly ask for? 

So, please join us between 2 - 6 pm on Sunday 9 September.  Start at any garden (all open gardens will have balloons outside) and the entry fee you pay there (£3 per person, or £5 for 2, children free) will get you into all the rest of the gardens.

All the money raised by the event will go to The Friary Drop-In - also based on Musters Road - and there will be a Harvest Thanksgiving Service at the Friary's allotment at 6 pm to mark the end of the day.

Beekeeping at 200 Musters Road

On the day we will have a stall to promote the great work Friends of the Earth is doing with their Bee Cause as well as promoting beekeeping in West Bridgford

We will have bee games, hand out wild flower seeds which attract bees and other pollinators, promote our next beekeeping course as well as promoting BIBBA.

Preparations ....

There's nothing more satisfying than doing a spot of weeding ........


Unless, of course, it's getting someone else to do a spot of weeding for you ....

An appeal!

Planning for the Musters Road Open Gardens event on 9 September is moving on apace and we now have 8 - possibly 9! - gardens opening as well as the children's raised beds at the front of Jesse Grey school which is a fantastic addition to the afternoon. 

However .... by far the majority of gardens opening are in the section of Musters Road between the Melton Road traffic lights and Jesse Grey school.  It would be wonderful if more of our neighbours in the stretch of road leading to Trent Bridge would join us and make the afternoon a truly All-Musters Road event!

Please - if you live on that part of the road - get in touch and join us!

Flickr Photo Group for Musters Road Open Gardens

There's a photo group to upload photos' too at - http://www.flickr.com/groups/2003571@N23/

Not much there at the moment - but we plan to add photos through the summer months to get a real sense of the gardens leading up to September 9th.

Amalfi Coast - Gardening Report...

I'm not sure the Musters Road Open Gardens will be able to offer such a splendid Bougainvillea as this beauty on the Amalfi Coast, but there will be much else to tempt and interest gardeners and non-gardeners alike. 

In this area of Italy, currently being visited by one of our 'Open Gardeners', the predominant horticultural feature are the huge and plentiful local lemons - the trees are grown in terraces up and down the steep slopes along the coastline, and are absolutely groaning with fruit - unlike this gardener's lemon 'twig', currently approximately all of 15 inches tall and sporting one and a half golf-ball sized, green fruits! 

A triumph of gardening hope over expectation! We look forward to you visiting us on 9 September.

Open Gardens - West Bridgford - Musters Road

The flowers are going wild @133!

Water feature needs turning on...

Hello World... Initial Press Release

Musters Road Open Gardens

 Looking round other people’s gardens is one of the nicest ways to spend a Sunday afternoon – whether the main purpose is to borrow some planting ideas, enjoy chatting with other gardeners, take some gentle exercise and refreshment or, let’s be honest, be a bit nosey! The open gardens concept certainly isn’t new to West Bridgford – Lady Bay and Selby Road have well-established open weekends  - but now it’s the turn of some of Musters Road’s residents to reveal all and – they hope – raise a decent sum of money for a local charity.

The date is September 9^th (put it in your diaries now!) and there will be a dozen or so gardens opening up – big, small and somewhere in between, with the added attraction of cream teas, home –made cakes, a plant stall, fruit pressing, a wandering minstrel and games and activities to keep the children happy. The gardens will be open from 2 - 6 pm and it won’t cost a fortune – just £3 per person or £5 for two (no charge for children) will get you into all the gardens and every penny raised will go to the Friary Drop-in Centre on Musters Rd, which does such a brilliant job supporting people who are suffering hardship because of homelessness, unemployment or other personal crises.

More information is available on this website and on Facebook and twitter - details to follow.

 If you'd like to volunteer your garden or your help, email Kate Lewis at katelewis64@hotmail.com