4 weeks ago, TCV Edinburgh started a large project at the Greenbank Centre (newly named the Islay Centre) at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital where 3 new gardens were needed for a newly refurbished high dependancy ward. The mid-week volunteers have been working extremely hard this past month and work has progressed quickly, changing a building site into what are most definitely recognisable gardens…
The 3 gardens are now separated by brand new fencing put up by the building contractors providing safety and security and giving each of the gardens their own private space. Bamboo fencing has also been put up along the back of the gardens to screen off the nearby school.
One of the biggest improvements to the gardens so far is the eventual arrival of plants and trees (yay!). A mixture of silver birches and rowan trees have been planted along the fencelines to provide cover and privacy. A mixture of dogwoods and small shrubs have also been planted which will provide colour to the gardens during both the Summer and Winter months. The difference that adding a few plants makes is amazing!
Sleeper beds have been the next big task that the volunteers have faced with each gardens requiring 3 square sleeper beds each (thats 18 sleepers per garden!) It quickly became apparent that chopping all these sleepers in half was just too big a task to do by hand with a panel saw. So eventually a circular saw was called in to tackle the sleepers – still not an easy task, but far more achievable!
Before the sleeper beds could be laid, the entire gardens had to be levelled out to ensure the area was completely flat. This involved a couple of hard days work raking, shovelling and levelling out the ground until it was flat. Then once the sleeper beds were made and placed, a spirit level was brought out just to ensure that everything was perfect.
Levelling of ground ready for raised beds.
Volunteers debating how best to cut the sleepers.
The circular saw makes its appearance to do the job!
The best cut of the day!
Beginnings of a raised bed.
One of the completed raised beds.
The gardens are looking great so far, but are still a long way off being finished with more raised beds to build as well as benches, plants, more trees and a lot of mulch and bark chippings. More updates to follow soon!