After a very long winter, Emer Torpey had organised a (slightly later) spring outing to view the tulips in Helen Dillon’s garden and also to take in a tour of the Botanic Gardens. We received the usual warm welcome from Helen and Val Dillon in their beautiful home in Sandford Park. The front garden was [...]
As I indicated at the end of my last progress report on the Orchard Garden in early summer we have now ‘signed off’ on that particular gardening project. Mary Toomey has been training Botanic Garden students during the summer months in the Orchard Garden. They have been getting great experience in all aspects of maintaining [...]
Many thanks to all who supported the Plant sale for the Orchard Day Care and Respite Centre which was held on Saturday June 28th. Thanks to your absolutely fantastic support we raised just over €930. This money will be held by the club and disbursed in its entirety to contribute towards the maintenance of [...]
Our Club's outreach activity is focused on the Orchard Day Care Centre Garden, at the Alzheimer Society of Ireland, Temple Road Blackrock, where our dedicated volunteers are helping to create and maintain a peaceful garden environment for the users of the centre. It has been a busy few months in the garden, but as every [...]
Almost 5 years on, since I became involved in this garden project, it is certainly heart-warming to see the results of planning, planting, patience and dedicated hard work. Of course, while Mother Nature is in control with regard to growth and development of plants, none can dispute the amount of regular dedicated work of volunteer [...]
There is not a lot to report yet as the weather has been so bad. Nature has certainly balanced out our lovely extended mild autumn! We had a meeting in January to plan out a work schedule for the spring and will weed, mulch, prune and move some shrubs just for a start. [...]
We had such a glorious sunny summer in 2013 that we tend to forget what a slow start there was to the growing season. When we started back at the beginning of March all one could see were big expanses of bare compacted earth with no signs of new growth. Fortunately we had a little [...]
It has been an extremely busy year so far in the garden. Fortunately we have a really dedicated group of volunteers who have shown up week after week and worked their gardening boots off! With Mary Toomey back to direct the work on Wednesdays the jobs have been very varied. If we ever find ourselves [...]
We had our initial meeting of volunteers at the Alzheimer Centre in Blackrock. Mary Toomey had appealed for members to come and work on an ongoing basis in the garden of the Centre. About a dozen of us showed up and Mary brought us around the large walled garden which encircles a beautiful new purpose built [...]
Introduction by Dr Mary Toomey: Right from the very beginning of my association with the Alzheimer Society of Ireland I was most anxious to do my best to make the most of an expansive high walled area around the new purpose built Day Care & Respite Centre at Blackrock and create a restful and a [...]