St Cuthbert's Society and Gardens
St Cuthbert’s Senior Common Room Open Garden Day. - Sunday 30th June 2013.
Following the resounding success of our first Open Garden Day in June 2012 (when we raised £600 for St Cuthbert’s Hospice) we have arranged a further Open Garden Day for Sunday 30th June 2013.
This year we have decided to raise money for VIPS (Visual Impairment Problem Solving in County Durham). This is a local charity that is supported by Fiona Gameson, an SCR member and mentor at St Cuthbert’s.
http://www.cdsbps.co.uk/
We are delighted that Fiona, and Linda Curtis, the Chief Executive of VIPS, have agreed to assist us in organising the event this year. The plan for this year is to create a sensory garden, using some of the existing, but largely empty, beds surrounding the lawns of House No. 8. Linda Curtis has kindly agreed to produce some promotional material (posters and leaflets) to advertise the event throughout Durham. Fiona and Linda will also have a stall in the JCR for this year’s event, which will provide information about VIPS and include educational activities to improve public awareness understanding of the experience of being partially sighted or blind.
We are seeking the help and involvement of all SCR members to make this event an even bigger success than last year’s Open Garden Day.
Your help with the following would be greatly appreciated:-
- Volunteering on the day. We need volunteers to collect entrance fees and guide people around the garden.
- We need plants to sell on the plant stall to raise additional funds on the day. So if there are any ‘green fingered’ SCR members who propagate plants from seeds and cuttings who could spare a few plants for the sale this would be particularly helpful.
- We are also looking for plants that could be included in the sensory garden. Examples are plants with scented flowers and foliage (lavender, rosemary, thyme, mint, sage, lemon verbena, roses. jasmine, honeysuckle), plants with textured foliage (lamb’s ear, sedums) and plants that make sounds in the wind (bamboos, grasses). Any cuttings/divisions of suitable plants that are grown by SCR members would again be greatly received.
Anyone interested in helping to get the garden into good shape for the Open Day can come along to help at our next planned garden maintenance day on Sunday 2nd June 2013 (9.00am to 12.00 noon followed by a free Sunday lunch in the dining hall).
Hope to see you there.
Please contact Jackie Walton, SCR Secretary if you have or will have any plants for sale or sensory garden at jmwrhs2011@gmail.com or Ian Harrison SCR President on cuthberts.scr-president@durham.ac.uk if you wish to volunteer for gardening on 2nd June or stewarding on 30th June.
A Blooming Good way to raise money.
The Open Garden at 12 South Bailey on Sunday 1st July 2012 raised £600 for St Cuthbert’s Hospice. As well as raising funds for an excellent cause the event raised the profile of the college and the University to locals and visitors to Durham who enjoyed the one sunny afternoon of the summer so far.
SCR members and students worked hard to maintain the gardens and show them at their best for Congregation and Open Days which occurred earlier in the week, and thanks to the loan of planters from the Botanic gardens [wheelbarrow pictured]the gardens of 8 and 12 South Bailey were looking splendid. After many years of work clearing the President’s Walk our visitors were able to safely walk along and get an unexpected glimpse of a secluded part of the peninsula.
There was art and activities for all, a scrumptious strawberry cream tea, croquet on the lawn and a plant stall [pictured]. The winners of the competitions were Kate and Chris from Grange-Over-Sands (£10 gift voucher donated by Wilkinsons), Mitch from Durham (limited edition print donated by Richard Gladstone) and Craig and Jak from Quarrington Hill (Family entry to a Durham University attraction donated by Event Durham).
St Cuthbert's Gardening Force - Volunteers Needed
Message from SCR Secretary, Jackie Walton
April 2012
Many thanks to all of you who turned up for the scheduled garden maintenance day on Sunday 4th March. In spite of the atrocious weather on the day, the dedicated gardeners amongst us (and four students who kindly offered their help) battled through the torrential rain to do some weeding and tidying up of the borders and beds.
The garden has been looking wonderful in the more recent glorious spring weather, particularly the spring flowering bulbs in the raised borders around the dining hall and JCR and the stunning white flowers of the Hellebores planted out in the oval bed last summer.
We have received a donation of £150 from the College to buy some new plants for the garden and Barbara Harrison and I plan to visit Finchale Training Centre to choose some plants on 25th April. We hope to find some additional herbaceous perennials for the oval bed and a suitable plant for the urn bought by the JCR last year. If anyone has any suggestions then please let us know before the 25th April. We intend spending some time in the garden planting out the new plants on the morning of Saturday 28th April. Anyone who would like to help is more than welcome to join us on the day, and will be rewarded by a hearty brunch in the dining hall afterwards!
The next scheduled SCR/JCR garden maintenance day is due to take place on Sunday 20th May in the morning followed by Sunday Lunch in the dining hall. We also have exciting plans afoot for a Garden Open Day on Sunday 1st July, to showcase the gardens at St Cuthbert's and to raise money for St Cuthbert's Hospice. We will be looking for volunteers to help organise this event so please put the date in your diary if you are interested in getting involved.
If you would be interested in helping with the garden or have any other suggestions for gardening-related events then please contact jmwrhs2011@gmail.com
June 2011
Those of you who attended the SCR Guest Night at the end of the Summer Term 2011 will have noticed the transformation of the garden overlooked by the dining hall. This has been achieved in a relatively short period of time by the combined efforts of college staff, SCR and JCR members. As an enthusiastic horticulturalist with a passion for gardens it has been a personal mission of mine to do something to restore the gardens at St Cuthbert's which had sadly become neglected and overgrown in recent years.
It has been a joy to work with the staff and students who have shared my interest in the garden and who have volunteered their time to get it back into shape. I would like to particularly thank the outgoing JCR President, Paul Harwood, who enlisted the support of other students to do most of the clearing out work and who was instrumental in obtaining JCR funding for the magnificent Urn and Plinth which now takes pride of place in the centre of the island bed opposite the Bailey bar area.
I would also like to thank Barbara and Ian Harrison who also volunteered their free time (and gardening tools!) to undertake the clearing out and re-planting work and to Sue Cole and Richie who have been an ongoing source of support, not least in their help with watering and the installation of trellising for the climbing plants along the dining hall and JCR walls.
The garden has also been transformed by the installation of three wonderful statues that were obtained with the very kind and generous assistance of Henry Dyson. Michelangelo, 'Autumn' and the 'River Goddess' now provide interesting focal points for the garden and already it is difficult to recall how the garden looked before their arrival. The addition of Gillian's 'footwear' for the statues for the SCR Guest night was inspired!
We are keen to keep the momentum going and I would like to use this opportunity to enlist the help of any other SCR members, who share an interest in gardening, to help with ongoing maintenance and any future re-planting in the garden. 'Garden Events' are now included on the SCR events calendar which could involve a few hours of garden maintenance work in the morning, followed by lunch and/or perhaps a visit to a local garden or a talk by on outside speaker on a gardening - related topic.
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