Last night GoodGym Nottingham paid our first visit to the Carlton Hill Sensory Garden (also known as the Garden for the Blind). We had been given instructions by the team at Hope Nottingham, who look after the garden in addition to many other community projects and foodbanks around the city.

Our task was to do some general weeding and tidying of the raised beds and around the garden, so we got stuck in straight away with clearing the weeds and trimming various overgrown and dead plants. Some of the group also did a spot of litter picking around the garden.

As this is a sensory garden, it seemed that all the plants had been selected specifically for their sensory properties, both in terms of the way they looked and, more notably, the way they smelt. As we pruned away, we enjoyed the smells of lavender, curry leaves and many other scents that we couldn’t necessarily name but were very pleasant. We all agreed that it was our nicest smelling task to date!

It was also one of our noisiest tasks. Usually we are tucked away in a quiet corner of Nottingham such as a hidden community garden or a church yard, however the Carlton Hill Sensory Garden is right in the heart of Carlton high street which was bustling on this warm August evening. There were children playing on the neighbouring park and a crowd of people enjoying an after-work drink outside the Wetherspoons opposite.

This actually came in helpful in two ways – firstly, Peter nipped over to the pub to borrow a dustpan and (very small) brush to sweep up the cuttings as we’d forgotten to bring our own, and secondly, a passer by noticed us hard at work in the garden and ‘papped’ us, posting on the local Facebook group in celebration of our efforts before we’d even finished! This was incredibly heart-warming (especially as some of us were referred to as ‘youngsters’), and gained a lot of likes and several encouraging comments.

After an hour of work we downed tools, cleared up and transported several bags of green waste to Peter’s car as he had kindly agreed to dispose of it for us. This was a great task and we hope to return to the Carlton Hill Sensory Garden soon to continue where we left off.

Thanks to this task's volunteers Dayna, Rosemarie, Hannah, Leah, Peter, Rachel, Tom and Vytautas.

A huge well done to Tom who we had not seen since he recently completed the Lakeland Trails ultramarathon in a massive heatwave!!

We were back at Windmill Community Gardens again this week for another session.

The already expansive Gardens have grown again with the adoption of a new, wildly overgrown plot, and our host Lucy gave us a tour to start things off.

There were a few jobs to do in anticipation of their Art in the Garden event this weekend (pop along if you can!) so we quickly split up into a few groups to get as much as we could done in the time we had.

Peter started off clearing some rubbish left over from the shed removal, including a particularly foul-smelling bucket (kudos for your strong stomach, my friend!). Once that was up in the skip, he joined Leah, Nigel and brand-new GoodGymers Khiltee and Dina (Welcome!) in clearing weeds and overgrown foliage from the new children's area. Hazards included ants and other bugs and some particularly prickly bushes with very deep roots.

Rosemarie and Dayna had arguably the toughest task of lugging woodchip from the pile at the entrance right the way down to the bottom of the gardens to cover the pathways that had rotted down or become overgrown. Nigel and Khiltee also grabbed some buckets to cover the floor of the teepee and the old shed foundations.

We ended the session munching on some delicious, freshly-picked fruit!

Eight GoodGymers headed to the Carrington Community Garden in Nottingham to help tidy up the area. Nestled between two residential streets, this hidden gem has been a little neglected in the last couple of years and had become overgrown, littered and had also attracted some rough sleeps recently.

As GoodGym, we had been aware of the gardens for some time but did not know who to contact about helping there. So when we saw Peter, whose daughter had just moved nearby, asking on social media for help in sprucing it up we jumped on board, along with some other local residents and councillors.

Now, all GoodGym tasks are great, but you know it's going to be a good one when you are greeted on arrival by a) a dog and b) an ice lolly and muffins, even before we had done any work (although some had run/cycled in the sun so were more deserving!). This is what happened when we arrived and met Local Councillor, Nayab, who brought the treats and Mark from the Council who was accompanied by little Jack the jack russell. Jack kept a watchful eye on us as we worked and was particularly interested when someone rustled the paper of a muffin case (sorry, Jack, they were chocolate). We were also joined by some local residents and Councillor AJ Matsiko stopped by to have a chat and admire our work.

Peter had already made a bit of a start on the garden the previous week, but we carried on with the clear-up, spending an hour removing weeds and brambles from the path area and litter picking around the gardens. We filled two green waste bins and more, and after the hour the area already looked more open and the path more accessible. There is a still a lot to do, though, so we will be putting in more dates to return very soon.

Thank you to Mark, Nayab, AJ, Kees and his family for such a fun evening, and thanks to Peter for getting this project off the ground.