News Update: July 2016

Five lovely Polish landscape gardeners have been working full time at Park Pharmacy Trust’s, magical medicinal garden at Thorn Park Lodge for the past four weeks. They are on a European funded project, organised by Tellus College and finish their present assignment on Thursday.

They have followed the original brief of the garden to have small scale charm: the whole is not to be viewed at once by rather to be gradually discovered as detail of the contrasting areas emerge on inspection. Tucked away in the design are places to sit, including two wheel chair bays. The garden is for the use of the community and special provision for people with disabilities is being made. All the materials used in the garden: slates, limestone, shillet, granite are local to the southwest. Features such as boundary walls, internal walls, footpaths, raised beds are being built in traditional design. And the pond has become a haven for an incredible variety of wildlife, including frogs, newts and toads, and the varied invertebrates required for their life cycles. This part of the garden is permanently wet as it traverses the Middle Ditch of Houndiscombe.
 
A new community group is being formed to use and maintain the garden. The group, Thorn Park Lodge and Garden Community Group has already attracted over 75 names of people (of all ages) who want to become members when the group will be formally launched in September at a public meeting. ​