St Ninian's & St Clement's

St Ninian's & St Clement's, Catholic Churches Together

Category: Garden

Eco / Garden / St Ninian’s

May Flower Procession

Today the children celebrated our Mother Mary with a lovely contribution during Mass. They distributed flowers to the ladies in the congregation and laid a ring of flowers at the foot of the statue in the Mary Garden. The children did a wonderful job and we are very proud of them. We would like to say thank you to Sister Christy Paul and community for providing the beautiful outfits, to Father Andrew for his part in making it run so smoothly and to Colette because, without her wonderful singing voice, these things would never be quite so special.

Children's liturgy

Laying flowers in the Mary Garden

Remember Maria…..

Eco / Garden

Earth Day

UK nature is beautiful and precious – but it’s in crisis. That’s why from 28th April – 1st May it’s important that people come together to sow, grow, and create thriving habitats for the nature on our doorstep.

Whether it’s a garden, a balcony, or an unloved community space, any outdoor area can become a flourishing wildlife haven.  

The truth is, every one of us, no matter who we are, or where we live, can and must play a part in restoring nature” Sir David Attenborough

So, Louise, from our Parish Garden Gang has put together packs of compost with a few nasturtium seeds which are so easy to grow even on a windowsill if you’ve no garden. These are being offered to parishioners this weekend at the Vigil and Sunday morning Mass.

Judi has once again made up Sunflower Growing Kits for the children. We look forward to hearing about all the lovely flowers that are so good for wildlife!

For more information about Earth Day go here

Eco / Garden / St Ninian’s

Parish Orchard

As we continue our Eco Congregation journey, our Garden Gang are delighted to announce that, with the help of a grant from Scotmid, they purchased and have planted a number of fruit trees in the parish garden on the piece of grass in front of the house kitchen and garage.

The orchard consists of 2 apple trees, pear trees, blueberry bushes as well as a plum tree and 10 raspberry canes! We look forward to tasting the produce in the summer!

Eco / Garden

Tidy up!

The garden gang have been busy the last few weeks with a general tidy up of the front and back gardens. The spring bulbs are fairly growing! Signs of Spring for sure!

Meanwhile, In CC’s, the soup and toasties are proving popular with our regulars. They kindly increased their contributions last Thursday when told we were sending the proceeds to the Turkey/Syria Earthquake appeal. We combined the £50 collected that day with another £50 donated by parishioners attending the after-Mass coffee/teas. Thank you!

Anne from SCIAF, on receiving our online donation, thanked us saying, “Through SCIAF’s partners, we are able to immediately reach out to those most in need. Our partners including Caritas Syria and Turkey are already there, working tirelessly to provide emergency relief where it’s needed most. With heartfelt prayers and thanks.”

Eco / Garden / St Ninian’s

Garden Update

Today the Garden Gang were busy doing the first Mary Garden tidy up of 2023. It was lovely to see the shoots appearing from the spring bulbs, which made up for some of the plants that we lost due to the freezing winter temperatures.

Our little robin pal was there as always, feasting on biscuit crumbs.

If anyone has seen Winter Watch this week you will know how important old and dead wood is to the mini beasts and small mammals who make a meal of the fungus growing on it – so important for the circle of life! Imagine how pleased we were to find the log (that a child might sit on at Children’s Liturgy!) covered in some essential beastie food.

cafe / Garden / St Ninian’s

Busy Thursday

There was a lot going on at St Ninian’s today. While the Garden Gang were causing chaos- oops, sorry I mean they were dismantling the Crib, CC’s was also a hive of activity. On the menu today was a choice of not 1, not 2 but 3 delicious soups! The customers were spoilt for choice with lentil, spicy parsnip or minted pea and spinach to warm them up on a cold January day.

We are very fortunate to have such a great team of volunteers from St Ninian’s and St Clement’s.

The 2 Brians working hard and Jim and Louise supervising perhaps?
What is Maureen up to?
Ann and Elaine on the toastie making.
A few of our happy customers enjoying their soup

cafe / cookery / Garden

Stovies!

Our monthly soup and stovies deal is proving to be popular with our customers. All the vegetables we used were the produce of our church garden, tenderly nurtured by our Garden Gang.

The little we had left over, we offered as a takeaway- ideal for people living on their own.

We are very fortunate to have a great team of volunteers willing to help with the prep, serving and clearing up. Thank you!

Eco / Garden / St Ninian's Primary School

Spring Prep!

The Garden Gang had a wee trip out today to help the children at St Ninian’s Primary School do a bit of bulb and wildflower planting! They were lovely little people and enthusiastically got mucky as they planted and scattered various bulbs, corms and seeds.

Can’t wait to see the results next spring and summer!

Here we can see Jim (who is wearing the striped top) TRYING to make sure the roots were pointing down and the shoots were pointing up 😆 It’s destined to be a very original display!