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On the last day of our John Muir Discovery Award, the group has the exciting job of moving a gold-award winning garden from the Chatsworth RHS Flower Show to the Eco Centre in Middleton.

Everyone met at the Eco Centre - county hub for sustainability learning - to trans-locate the garden from the show to the site. The plan was to ensure the garden, which was designed to connect people to nature and improve their wellbeing, was integrated into the site for people to enjoy it for years to come.

The area had been cleared ready, but the raised bed frames still needed to be built and 9 tonnes of soil moved into the finished beds. The group helped with building the frames, using drills and power tools and with collecting all the soil into barrows.

It was quite a hectic day with a lot to do, but everyone got stuck in to get the job completed.

Throughout the day, everyone chatted about the wide range of experiences they had had in Derby city centre, Hilton nature reserves and the Eco Centre. Comments included how amazing it was to find the Sanctuary nature reserve in the middle of the city. There were lots of exclamations of "I never even knew it was there!". Lots of the group thought the work they had done at Hilton was really fulfilling, and that the wildlife they found there was really beautiful. And, the group were especially pleased to have had sun for the full four days!

On the third day (Thursday 20th June), the group met with George, a Derbyshire Wildlife Trust Living Landscape Officer. Starting out at Hilton Annex nature reserve, a small reserve bordering Hilton Brook, we began with a quick session on the identification and issues surrounding Himalayan Balsam. Some of the group had seen Balsam before and others hadn’t. A small group began pulling up the balsalm, clearing the bank and placing it into composting piles. The second group focused their efforts on removing encroaching scrub from the great crested newt receptor ponds. During this we discussed the need to limit scrub encroachment on the sensitive pools, keeping willow at bay to prevent the drying out and over shading of these important newt ponds.

Later in the day, the group moved onto Hilton Gravel Pits, a much larger reserve with a mosaic of habitats, from woodland and scrub, to open water and reedbeds. Walking the reserve, we spoke about the general checks that are routinely carried out across the reserve including tree safety assessments and accessibility. We also found purple toothwort, a plant that parasitizes roots of certain trees. This was a first sighting for most of the group. From the day the group took home the importance of scrub management, discussing the importance of scrub, but also the importance of minimising scrub encroachment in sensitive areas.