An ongoing Green Gym project begun in 2016 has involved the creation and maintenance of flower and vegetable beds at Chipping Norton Health Centre. We are pleased to be cooperating with the Centre in enhancing the appearance of areas which greet users and staff, keeping fit as we work to help preserve increasingly threatened fauna and to encourage healthy eating.
A bumblebee-friendly flower bed
Of the two dozen types of bumblebee in the U.K., eight are commonly found here in Oxfordshire. Most of the UK species have declined greatly in recent years; two more have become extinct since the 1940s. At the end of the summer we filled an area with groups of eleven different plants that produce blooms attractive to the harmless, ecologically vital bumblebee and which together provide their nectar over an extended flowering period.
The chosen area (above) was cleared of weeds, dug over and manured, before planting took place on a pleasant September morning. 
The bed is now a source of interest for the Centre’s users; according to the season it welcomes them with perfumed flowers, fragrant leaves, and culinary herbs to pick.
The bumblebee border in summer
More information: what was planted ** bumblebee factsheet ** gardening-for-bees
We look after all the planted areas at the Centre – the “slate bed” requires a lot of weeding! 
Thanks to regular attention and the addition of more plants, it now offers a lot of colour.
Compostable weeds go into our compost bins made from pallets. We made a hurdle to screen these.
Healthy Eating
We cleared ground and constructed raised beds to hold fruit bushes and vegetables. All the produce is offered as “Pick Your Own – Free” to form part of a healthy diet.
The freshly planted bushes above have now grown to fill the space available.
Crops include red and black currants, apples, rhubarb and runner beans.
The two most recent planters constructed are designed to be accessible to those who find it difficult to stand for a long time, need a wheelchair, or cannot bend to ground level. They were inaugurated at a work session by the then Town Mayor Georgia Mazower, in the presence of Health Centre partner GP Dr Wendy Hall and a representative of Deeley Construction, who generously assisted with the materials.
Inauguration of the planters for the physically less able, complete with bean “wigwam”.