Rock Road Library Garden

Christmas Cheer - 10th December 2011

2011-12-10T09:46:00.000-08:00

Christmas Cheer....The Friends of Rock Road Library provided mince pies and hot drinks at the library today as well as running a book stall and having a festive fairy tale storytime for children. Many thanks to Catherine Bentham for taking a lead in organising this and to all those who helped out. Rock Road Library will now be closed for a week while a new self-service point is installed and the issue desk is modified....so it will be the beginning of a new chapter for the library....

The Big Draw

2011-10-08T12:26:00.000-07:00

A BIG thank you to the illustators Adrian Reynolds and Alexis Deacon who came to share their love of drawing with children at Rock Road Library today.

Thanks too to all the volunteers who helped made the day a success and the library staff who were so helpful.

Rock Road Library Garden in September

2011-09-10T06:25:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the Beavers for planting sunflowers in the Rock Road Library Garden - these have produced lots of seeds to encourage more birds into the garden.

2011-09-10T06:21:00.000-07:00

This year the trees in the garden produced a few apples for the first time. A small basket of eating apples is available in the library for people to help themselves to and hopefully there will be more next year. A bag of cooking apples were also given to Pauline the library supervisor.

Gardening with Wildlife

2011-06-24T06:09:00.000-07:00

There was a very interesting talk at the library yesterday evening (23rd June) on Gardening with Wildlife by Neil Renwick of the RSPB. It included ideas for how to encourage more birds and wildlife into your garden e.g. don't deadhead plants (e.g. Lavender) in the autumn...if you leave them they provide a valuable food source for birds over the winter. They can then be deadheaded in February or March.

We hope to invite Neil back again in the future for a talk on another topic.

Thanks for all the genreous donations - we made nearly £100 and this is being shared between RSPB and the Friends of Rock Road Library.

Last of the apple blossom

2011-04-23T06:16:00.002-07:00

The warm weather means that much of the apple blossom is already fading. But here are some pictures taken this morning at the library garden.

Weeding & watering in the April Sunshine

2011-04-23T06:09:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who came to help with the weeding and watering this morning in the library garden. It was a baking hot morning, but the hedge and apple trees all seem to be thriving!

Daffodils in March

2011-03-20T02:47:00.000-07:00

Lovely to see the daffodils that the Beavers planted last October starting to bloom.

Pictures taken on 19th March 2011 - a lovely sunny spring day!

Thank you to the Beavers for weeding and planting

2011-03-17T13:24:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday 15th March a local Beavers group - led by Oliver - helped in the Rock Road Library Garden by doing some weeding, and by planting a bed of sunflowers, corflowers and californian poppies...it will be lovely in the summer to see how many flowers bloom.

The daffodils the beavers planted last October are doing well and nearly in flower...

Many thanks for your work!

Wine tasting - Friday 4th March

2011-03-06T07:57:00.000-08:00

Many thanks to Brenda Purkis for organising a great wine tasting on Friday. The wines were provided and introduced by Anthony of 'Hedonist Wines'. The event made approximately £200 for the Friends of Rock Road Library.

Meeting about library cuts

2011-03-06T07:49:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday 2nd March 2011 around 100 local people attended a meeting at Rock Road Library to find out more about the review of libraries in Cambridgeshire and the implications for Rock Road Library. Christine May - Acting Head of Libraries, Archives and Information for Cambridgeshire gave a very informative talk. There is a great deal of concern that Rock Road Library may be closed. Although it is well used it is not prioritised by the Council because it is in an area which is assessed as having less need. There will be a more formal consultation meeting in early April.

From Trees to Violins...

2011-01-21T12:30:00.000-08:00

From Trees to Violins

2011-01-21T12:19:00.000-08:00

We had an excellent talk yesterday at Rock Road library from Juliet Barker all about the art of violin making. Many thanks to Juliet for bringing lots of tools and giving a real insight into the whole process. We now understand much more about what happens in the workshop just across the lane behind the library.

Consultation on Library Cuts

2010-08-01T03:22:00.001-07:00

The following Summary of the planned Library Cuts has been provided by Cllr Tariq Sadiq (Labour, Coleridge Ward). Please use the comment facility to add your views about this.

The County Council has carried out a review of the Library Service as a consequence of which it has ordered a further review of Libraries in Cambridge. The main driving force behind this is cuts of 29% (£2.215m) in the Library Service Budget by 2013 and the impact on usage of the new Central Library in Cambridge. The savings target for the community library network, which includes Rock Road, is £100,000 and is described as 'Potential Library Closures'.

The Council wants to look at both 'externalising' the service (partnership with other authorities, setting up a trust for the County, or privatisation) and 'transforming' it which includes introducing more self-service technology, reducing paid staff, and increasing involvement by community volunteers. If this can be done it could prevent library closures. If not then they will consider factors such as 'library performance' and 'community need' to decide which libraries will be closed.

Thanks to Mabel for all her help watering the apple trees

2010-05-06T12:06:00.000-07:00

...and thanks to her Dad, Christoph, for these great photos for the blog!

When the weather warms up again we'll need to make sure we water the trees regularly and keep up with the weeding.

Apple Blossom in April

2010-04-25T01:57:00.001-07:00

Weeding morning: 24th April 2010

2010-04-25T01:35:00.000-07:00

We made great progess yesterday weeding all the hedge plants and the apple trees and giving them plenty of water. Thanks to all those who came along to help. We also put together a compost bin which can now be used for composting the weeds and grass cuttings. We'll have more weeding mornings through the summer.

Wine Tasting Friday 5th March

2010-02-20T05:52:00.000-08:00

Friends of Rock Road Library invite you to an evening's tasting of some fine wines selected by Hedonist Wines:
www.hedonistwines.co.uk

This convivial, relaxed social event will take place in the Rock Road Library
Friday 5 March, 8 pm-10.30pm.

Wines will be introduced by expert wine-seller Anthony Jenkins , and accompanied by savoury nibbles and a sampling of local cheese.

Complete beginners welcome- Tickets must be booked in advance - £12 non-members £10 members. To book please e-mail RockRoadFriends@yahoo.com

December snow (2)

2009-12-29T06:26:00.000-08:00

Another picture of the library garden in the snow.

December snow

2009-12-29T06:17:00.001-08:00

Just a picture of the library garden in the snow....

Plan of apple varieties

2009-12-05T11:41:00.001-08:00

Here is a rough plan of the library garden showing the twelve different apple varieties that were planted today. Ten of these were bought from the East of England Orchards project. These were specially chosen to be of local interest. Further details can be found on the website at http://www.applesandorchards.org.uk/. We have also planted one Crab apple and one Bramley apple so that we have a full range of different apple varieties. If you click on the plan on the right it will open in a new window so that you can read the different apple varieties.

More pictures of 5 December tree planting

2009-12-05T11:11:00.000-08:00

Planting and staking trees on 5th December

Twelve apple trees planted

2009-12-05T10:57:00.000-08:00

It was a perfect day for planting trees...the sun shone on us in the morning, the ground was soft and not too muddy, and then it rained late afternoon and evening. Thank you to everyone who came to help, and to Mary and Juliet for providing much needed hot drinks and biscuits! This is a picture of Mary Lachlan-Cope showing the group how deep to plant the trees.

Tree Planting 5th December

2009-11-27T10:00:00.000-08:00

The tree planting for the Rock Road Library Book Garden is next Saturday 5th December. This will be from 10.30 to 12.30 and the aim is to actually plant the trees between 11am and 12 noon so that we can be part of the BBC attempt to break the record for planting the most trees across the country in an hour, as part of National Tree Week. Further details about this can be found at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/breathingplaces/treeoclock/

Native Hedge

2009-11-22T10:08:00.000-08:00

We have planted a double row of native hedge plants on two sides of the Library garden to create a haven for wildlife and also to improve the security along the back fence. The plants are tiny at the moment (if you look at the picture you'll see what I mean!) but the soil has been well prepared and this is a great time of year to plant hedges and trees. The hedge will be a mixture of hawthorn, holly, and wild rose. Many thanks to Mike and Ann Hood from Green Man Landscapes who kindly donated all the hedge plants. Green Man Landscapes is a soft landscaping & domestic maintenance firm based at Whittlesford.

Good progress - hedge planted

2009-11-22T10:03:00.000-08:00

We made great progress yesterday morning and managed to plant all the 124 hedge plants as well as preparing the ground for tree planting in two weeks time. There was even time for a tea and coffee break - thanks to Katie, Fiona and Juliet for providing refreshments.

Hedge Planting

2009-11-16T12:19:00.000-08:00

Just a reminder that we will be planting the hedge for the Rock Road Library garden this coming Saturday 21 November from 11am -1pm. Please e-mail me or ring if you can volunteer to come and help for an hour. Plants have been kindly donnated by Green Man Landscapes at Whittlesford.

Celebration of Apples

2009-10-04T10:19:00.000-07:00

On Saturday 17th October 2009 we are planning a 'Celebration of Apples' from 11am to 1pm at the Rock Road Library to include a cake stall and plant sale. This is to raise funds for developing the library garden. Please e-mail me on J.Elliott@ioe.ac.uk if you can volunteer to provide some plants, or cakes or to help on the day.

Security and the Library Garden

2009-09-17T02:35:00.001-07:00

Several people who live near the library on Rock Road have expressed concerns about security. There have been a number of incidents in the past of people lighting fires in the cut through between Blinco grove and Hartington Grove and also of people climbing on to the library roof.

One of the reasons for planting a hedge around the garden is to improve security in the longer term. I have also just rung the Neighbourhood Policing Team to make contact with them as we are hoping to work with them to improve security as we develop the garden.

2009-09-12T17:35:00.000-07:00

Rock Road Library Garden before all the work started....

The Big Dig - 12 September 2009

2009-09-12T17:30:00.000-07:00

A big thank you to everyone who made the 'Big Dig' such a success this morning.

We have made a fantastic start to the Rock Road Library Garden Project. The ground has been prepared for hedge planting later in the autumn - with lots of free compost from Dunarbon mixed into the soil so that the hawthorn, holly and rose plants will thrive. We have also measured out the places where the trees will be planted and removed the turf and started preparing the ground.