On a hazy, hot May Sunday morning, a quartet of Goodgym helpers joined forces with the Friends of Festival Park to rejuvenate a corner flowerbed of the Chinese Gardens site. And, we packed a punch of "p" plant love with some gardening heave-ho to boot! Festival Park friend Kate guided us in the necessary steps to plant out a peony tree (frilly flowers will come), a paeonia (related but different), a pittosporum (completing the "p" theme), all rounded off with a row of hebe (no shebe) shrubs. So, with that lot of plants lined up in their pots, we had work to do. Bekah and Dan cleared the mulch topping from the flowerbed, and unpegged the underlay to expose the bare soil ready for digging. Lucien and Sian swiftly and neatly snipped back the ivy overhanging the stone wall. Thank you secateurs. Kate pointed out that however glorious the sunshine, the lack of recent rainfall has dried up the nearby lake and hardened the earth. That left our trusty spade trying to dig holes for planting out, but to no avail. So, out came one mattock (a tool akin to a pick-axe), followed by a second, heavier specimen, sourced by Kate's husband and Festival Park friend Steve. Dan quickly got a grip on mattock number two. He unleashed a surprisingly zealous degree of power to achieve the planting depth required. Bekah set about distributing the water brought in from off-site, to hydrate the plants comfortably into their new homes. Nurturing attention. Lucien and Sian gently loosened each plant's roots, all the better to dig themselves in and set firm foundations. Then, delicately sprinkling soil back in and around, they completed the re-housing job together. Tender and touching. The team reset the underlay and raked back the mulch evenly, standing back to look proudly across a new border-full family of plants. They already looked at home, and with plenty of space to grow in the months ahead. Zooming our gaze out of this one flowerbed, Kate and Steve relayed the value of their team's volunteering at Festival Gardens. Regular efforts keep the park tended for horticultural and recreational enjoyment alike. More friends had been simultaneously restoring neat and safe order to the children's play area towards the promenade, now fit for fun for little-uns once more. The spot we worked on is part of the Chinese Gardens, which received a major makeover back in 2011. That restored some original features from when it was created, as part of the hugely popular International Garden Festival, in 1984. That event transformed the site from an industrial wasteland and welcomed over 3 million visitors, all those forty-one years ago. Alongside our flowerbed, the Chinese Gardens also include a moon wall - a circular gateway feature which is typical of Chinese garden design. Around the other side of our spot is a large pagoda, standing impressively atop a wooden platform, beside the (currently dry) lake. It includes decorative tiles sourced in China and offers a strong flash of fiery red against the green vegetation, even with its slightly tired, mature paintwork. Above today's flowerbed once stood a second, upper pagoda, which was removed in 2015, to protect it from further damage. Our work today should contribute to a new view and experience of the Chinese Gardens. It is a Liverpool park area which holds mixed legacies of dockland communities, festival celebration, housing developments, community toil, and also the perfect place for a peaceful picnic. Back to those "p"s 😀