October

This month we have been getting creative with autumnal natural materials! Members of the Jigsaw group, based near Sandwell and Dudley, came to visit the gardens to create art inspired by mandalas.

As part of apple week, we have been sending off some apple samples to the RHS fruit identification service so that we can learn more about the the types of trees that were planted in the garden in the 1970's. We also invited Brian, a local tree enthusiast to take us on an Autumn tree walk and identify various species of trees that we have in the garden. We have a Tulip tree, a pair of honey locusts, a cockspur hawthorn and an American sweet gum to name a few!

It's that wonderful time of year! Apple week was enjoyed by clients, volunteers, staff and community. Earlier in the week, clients and volunteers were busy harvesting some of our apples and then we borrowed an apple press from a local allotment group. With this, we had fun pressing a variety of apples and we managed to make a few bottles of apple juice that was enjoyed by our carer's group and visiting women's group.

We welcomed a women's group from the local charity Restore, where we tried out some apple pressing, potted some mint plants, made fresh mint tea and shared recipes from lots of different cultures.

We've kicked off the half-term with a leaf mask activity where families got creative with a variety of different leaves. The tulip tree in our mature garden kindly donated lots of them!

We had over 70 people join us for some half-term tree activities where we got creative with nature, learned some citizen science techniques to measure trees and made our own clinometers to help us estimate the height of our trees.