Easter – Charlton and Blackheath Amateur Horticultural Society

Bunnies in the Beds 2025

Thank you to everyone who came to the annual Easter Trail “Bunnies in the Beds” at Charlton House walled gardens on Sunday April 6th. What a fabulous day we all had! We are so grateful to all the helpers, garden volunteers, CABAHS members and RGHT staff who made the event happen.

The Bunnies were hiding in their favourite plants this year, so the children learned a bit of Botany whilst spotting them! We admit to importing a few pots of flowers specially for the event ( I can’t see Jason wanting Marigolds or Periwinkle in the Old Pond Garden on a permanent basis..). After finding and naming the flowers, children had to find the Bees in the Bushes in order to pollinate the flowers – thanks to Carolyn for all those cute knitted bees!

Little girl and bee under cherry blossom

Bunnies in the Beds 2024

Our “Bunnies in the Beds” Easter Trail took place on Saturday (April 6th) for the fourth year running, it is becoming a fabulous fixture of the Garden Volunteers year. We start thinking up mad ideas in January during tea breaks, then gradually whittle them down to create an exciting but practical trail.

This year, the Bunnies went on an egg hunt with a difference! Having found all the eggs they then had to match them to their parent animal, in order to collect a prize. And by the end of the day, 175 children had achieved their goal. There were birds eggs to find of course, but also frogs, snakes, sand lizard, moths and even a dinosaurs egg!

Also on offer: Potting Up Table with free seeds, courtesy of RHS Britain in Bloom which is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. We were not expecting this to be so popular and almost ran out of seeds! So many small gardeners-in-the-making came to this event, it was lovely. If you are growing your seeds on, you can keep track how others are doing on social media on @RHS GrassRoots and #RHSBloom60.

Bunnies in the Beds 2023

Easter bunnies arrived early this year at Charlton House & Gardens. On the Sunday before Easter, ten vegetable loving bunnies hid themselves along with their favourite vegetables in the flower beds of the Gardens and were ready to be found by young visitors to this joint CABAHS & RGHT event. The morning’s chilly weather did not seem to deter the children who all enthusiastically scoured the Old Pond Garden and the Peace Garden.

Once they had found all ten and identified each bunny’s favourite vegetable they were encouraged to sow some radish seeds as part of the Royal Horticultural Society’s Big Seed Sow https://www.rhs.org.uk/get-involved/big-seed-sow . They could also learn about ‘the Secret Life of the Pea’ and choose some seeds to take home with them. Some even made their own origami seed packets. Fingers crossed we have set some of our visitors on the joyous path to becoming a life-long gardener!

Thankfully the weather was kind: dry with even a spell or two of sunshine during the afternoon. The real live bunnies brought along by Juli were an extra special attraction! By 3 o’clock, around 180 trails had been completed with donations earning a sizeable sum for Charlton House & Gardens. Our Plant Sale also proved an attractive draw and took over £200.

Did you ‘Follow the Carrots’ for Easter Bunnies, Plants and a Gorgeous Garden?

Thank you to everyone who came to last Sunday’s ‘Bunnies in the Beds’ and open garden at Charlton House. The ‘Follow the Carrots’ signs worked out a treat, and lots of small people arrived at the Peace Garden ready to find the Easter Bunnies and claim their prize. We gave it an International twist this year, after finding out how other countries celebrate Easter. So as well as Bunnies, the children had to find eg a Bilby from Australia, a Witch from Sweden, and some Willow sticks & feathers from Finland. No-one could really miss the kites (Bermuda) and we had a set of beautiful eggs from Ukraine to find too.

Follow the Bunnies sign — Follow those carrots!

Here they come! Queues for the trail, and let the Hunt begin..

The kites from Bermuda, representing Jesus rising up to heaven.

The day included a successful plant sale too, and Blackheath Flower Arranging Club joined us for a bit of promotion. Not to mention the Producers Market and Frilly’s cafe open all day.

Thank you everyone, these are wonderful gardens in which to hold an event!

OPG diary – April 2021

The gardens opened to the public on18 April for our ‘Bunnies in the Beds’ Easter trail, and a plant sale in the Long Borders. We were very impressed to receive a visit from keen gardener, the Mayor of Greenwich, Linda Bird. The gardens are now open Monday to Friday, 10am-4pm.

Charlton House gardens, April 2021: Mayor Greenwich, plant sales stall.

More pics below: top right is Viv in front of her re-located driveway, now the gravel garden. And the bottom left picture is of Bunny number 4, Borage, or Panic Bunny as he is better known since we discovered rather late that there was no Borage in the Peace Garden, so we had to hastily plant some!

Charlton House gardens, April 2021: gravel garden, Bunnies in the Beds Easter trail, CABAHS volunteers

Flowers out! And thirsty bees out too.

Charlton House gardens, April 2021: bees, Epimedium, Narcissus, blossom