Sunday 18 May, 2pm
Rampton Open Gardens is a celebration of local gardens from a sustainability perspective, focusing on wildflower areas and other pollinator/wildlife friendly features including ponds, bug hotels and hedgehog tunnels to name but a few.
This new community event will include talks in the village hall by experts in wildlife gardening and home composting as well as tours of the gardens of participating residents and the Black Horse pub. Visitors are also welcome to visit the grounds of Rampton’s beautiful medieval thatched church to view the recent wildflower and hedge plantings designed to increase biodiversity.
Refreshments will be available from 2pm in Rampton Village Hall, 4 Church End, Rampton, Cambs, CB24 8QA
Make 1 Metre Matter – FREE wildflower seeds
Following in the footsteps of On the Verge, a Stirling based community project and their sister groups in Wales and Cambridge City, we will be giving away packets of wildflower seeds in the village hall, so that you can grow your own metre square patch to increase the number and range of pollinators in your garden.
Of course you can do lots of other things with your 1m2 to help enhance local wildlife habitat – take a look at the ideas on the BBC Gardeners’ World Live ‘Make a Metre Matter‘ webpage, and perhaps even enter their competition.
P-P-Pick up a Pumpkin competition – helping to restore the wildflower meadow
Pick up a pumpkin seedling from the village hall, nurture it for a week or 2 and then join us in planting them on the Recreation ground wildflower meadow.
With 50 pumpkin seedlings we can Make 50m2 Matter!
Why?
- the meadow needs some help – planting a pumpkin patch will help to restore, that part at least, to its former glory;
- you could win a prize for the biggest pumpkin grown on the Rec;
- you can take your pumpkin along to the Halloween pumpkin carving competition at the Black Horse pub.
Wildflower identification activity
How many wildflowers can you spot during the afternoon? Using the ID sheet, tick them off as you go, take some photos and email them to sustainablerampton@gmail.com.
Programme
2 pm – Talks – Rampton Village Hall
* 2 pm – Introduction /overview of the event – Sumanlata Sahonta, Sustainable Rampton
* 2:15 pm – Wildflower planting pockets – a critical part of the food web – Dr Hilary Conlon, Anglia Ruskin University
2:45 pm – Tour of King Street gardens
* 15 The Green/corner of King Street – Pat Mansfield
* 11 King Street – Chris Boyland
* 42 King Street – Lata Sahonta
3:30 pm – Talk: Rampton Village Hall
* 3:30 pm – Composting benefits: Basic steps – Lawson Wight
3:45 pm – Tour of Cow lane gardens:
* 5 Cow Lane – Desiree Priest
* 9 Cow Lane – Lawson Wight
* 13 Cow Lane – Claire Perrot and Chris Goldsmith
* 14 Cow Lane – Anita and John Richards
* 32 Cow Lane – Jennie Coles
4:45pm – Tour of Black Horse Public House garden with Ella
5pm – End
A map of the village showing the participating gardens, together with a copy of the programme, is available to download here.
For more information, please email sustainablerampton@gmail.com (please put ‘Gardens’ in the subject area) or call Lata on 07580 002531.
