Last Thursday I spent the morning leading a task to plant herbs, shrubs, climbers and hardy perennials in the courtyard garden at the Aspire Young Person’s Centre in Great Yarmouth, with the staff of Investing Ethically Ltd, a Norwich firm of financial advisers who specialise in socially responsible, environmental and ethical investment.

The Aspire Young Person’s Centre provides accomodation for single young homeless people aged 16-25. It is run by the Benjamin Foundation, a Norfolk charity that exists to help people across the county deal with many of the challenges that life throws at them.

The courtyard garden is a lovely space for the tenants of the Aspire Centre to enjoy. It consists of several raised beds, which already contain a small pond and flowers such as Buddleja, pink Cistus and lavender. But the Manager of the Aspire Centre, Chris Neil, wanted to make it even better, with more plants for bees and butterflies, climbers and less reliance on bedding plants.

In April Chris took me out to Yarmouth to see the garden and I suggested some changes. This was followed by a trip to a garden centre in mid May, then the planting day. Additions to the garden included a honeysuckle, Clematis montana ‘Mayleen’ and a Wisteria for the walls, a bed of herbs such as thyme, marjoram and garlic chives and hardy perennials such as Echinacea purpurea, Eupatorium ‘ Baby Joe’ and Scabiosa columbaria ‘Nana’.

We followed up the garden task with chips on Yarmouth Market and ice cream on Britannia Pier. It was a great day out!