Japanese Garden Working Bee - December 2023

WOW! What a fantastic turnout for our latest Japanese Garden working bee held on Sunday 3rd December. The planned tasks were deadheading the many shrubs and bushes, raking leaves and weeding, and finally mulching to prepare the garden for the warmer summer months.

Members of the FSFA committee were joined by some of our Frankston Taiko Drumming group and Frankston City Mayor Nathan Conroy. Thank you so much to those who attended and worked so enthusiastically to complete all the required tasks, and those who sent their apologies.

After several days of rain (very welcome as the garden's watering system has been out of action for a number of weeks) the weather was perfect for a morning in the garden. Participants started by removing the numerous dead flowers from the rhododendrons, camellias and many azaleas bushes as well as weeding as required. There were also a number of bamboo shoots that required cutting and a carefully applied dose of Roundup!

There were plenty of fallen leaves to rake up and collect throughout the garden - bamboo, camellia, rhododendron, maple, azalea and others.

Frankston High School had kindly supplied and delivered 15 bags of black mulch which were laid out on the stones ready to be applied. Morning tea arrived (thanks Vic and Marilyn!) and was greatly appreciated before the final clean up and mulching was completed. Despite going a little over the anticipated time, everyone was happy to see all the tasks completed before we had a group photo taken in the garden.

We then finished the morning with a shortened taiko drumming practice session in a classroom adjacent to the Japanese Garden. A great way to finish a successful morning's work.

Thank you again to all those who gave up their Sunday morning to attend our working bee - it's been many years since we've had such a great number of participants!