28/07/12 - Working Party

As there were very few of us available for last weeks scheduled working party it was postponed until this week.

Linda, Christine and Angela were manning [womanning ?] stalls at the Holbeck Gala. I visited with two of my grandchildren and took this photo of Linda on Holbeck in Bloom's plant stall [because the members of Holbeck in Bloom were also on the Holbeck Gala committee].

The kids had a whale of a time on the bouncy castle, slide and donkeys. They also got to do t-shirt painting and, as Isla put it 'watch the soldiers making music' [Scottish Pipe Band].

This week the people who could make it assembled at the Millenium Garden [I was late having stayed up late to watch the opening ceremony of the olympics and then I slept in!]. We did a bit of pruning and lots of weeding. There were at least 3 barrow loads of bindweed pulled out and some grasses, that had gone mad, removed so that the plants underneath had a better chance. As I arrived Linda was grappling with a grass that was bigger than she was.

This was during our tea break. As you can see we were a select few. Angel came with Judith but had wandered out of shot.

We have a meeting at the Watsonia on Monday 6th August - which will be our first for quite a while as the last few were turned into working parties or were on summer judging day.

Sara x

14/07/12 Beeston Hill Planters

I had to drop a letter in the post box on my way to Sainsburys [other supermarkets are available] this morning so I grabbed the opportunity to take some photos of the planters nearest the post box.

This planter is full of heucheras and pansies and looks delicious.

This is the planter outside the bakery - very colourful.

The wildflower planters are a bit windblown [in opposite directions!] - they could have done with something shorter round the edges - but still interesting.

And finally, I was too lazy to walk over the road so these are the Sunnyview planters from a distance. They could maybe do with a bit more height in them next year - but it is difficult to know what to plant as we can't have too much height in them, or we risk reducing the visibility splay, and also things like cordylines tend to 'walk' - but they are very colourful and add interest to an otherwise boring space.

Sara

11/07/12 - Bowling Green Border

The retired ladies have been busy planting up the Bowling Green Border with grasses that were rescued from the Cardinal Triangle last year. We have tried several different options in this border, planting wildflower seeds was the last one, but nothing ever worked properly because it got trampled by passing children and animals [presumably].

This is the before picture [Linda is better at remembering to take these than me]. The border had been treated with weed killer twice by the Parks Department for us.

These are the new plants all ready to be planted.

Edna and Vivienne in the process of planting them with Linda having a break to take the photo in a rare bit of British sunshine - at least the plants will be well watered in, the way things are going.


Sara

01/07/12 The Night Before Judging

Linda and I met at the Tommy Wass planters at 9am Sunday morning to try and deadhead the petunias - it had to be early as the judges will see most of them from the road side and we needed to start before the traffic got heavy. Most cars and, to my surprise, buses left us extra room [I was wearing my hi-viz jacket] but the nearest to collision I came was with a cyclyst [who you would expect to be more thoughful].

I didn't get any photos I'm afraid as I then had to dash off to see my Nan who's 95th birthday it was.

I collected Linda again at 6pm and we went to the Watsonia Pavillion to start setting up the display boards for tomorrow. After that we had a quick look round the Millenium Garden

Blogger was playing up yesterday when I was trying to add a photo of the new fern, so it is now the day after judging, but as I forgot to take any photos of that I will continue with this post. The borders and beds were looking good.

And thats the only photo blogger is going to let me add [maybe I need to get more space or something].

Anyway judging seemed to go ok, the rain started as the judges arrived for lunch but stopped just after we left to start on the route. There had been quite a lot of rubbish on Gypsy Lane when Linda & I checked on Sunday night so after dropping Linda at Coburn and Adam at the Chelsea Garden, Susan and I went back and did a quick litter pick - talk about last minute, I was just putting my bag of rubbish in the boot of my car when the mini bus drove past and Susan had to hide round a corner.

The rain held off until everyone got back to the Watsonia for afternoon tea, so that was pretty good timing and the judges seemed quite happy - although you can't really tell so we'll have to wait until we get the results.

There was some debate over when the next meeting should be - there might be one in August but we're not sure yet. I think we deserve a breather after the last two weeks but we might be recovered by the 6th.

Sara

30/06/12 Working Party

As judging day is looming we split into different parties to try and do as much as possible. Unfortunately I only have pictures of where I was - but Vivienne and Jim put up Beeston in Bloom signs on the planters that had 'lost' them as well as helping Susan and Pauline at the Millenium Garden.

Meanwhile I was with Linda, Edna, David and our new recruit Elaine [above] at the Cardinal Triangle pulling up more weeds and planting the salvias and verbenas we bought on Monday. I think it is looking great, the plants are getting more established and the colour scheme of purple and silver is pulling everything together nicely.

After some debate we planted the salvias to form a ribbon of purple through the centre of the end bed and filled in with the verbenas. It's a good job we had a 'shower' [read cloudburst] later in the day as we have no access to water when we are at the Cardinal Triangle unless we fill up containers and that it with us [and I forgot again]. We also transplanted a large plant whose identity remained a mystery. It was pulled up because we thought it might be a weed but the roots were plant pot shaped so we decided it might not be a weed and replanted it near two smaller specimens of the same plant [forgot to take a photo so can't ask if anyone knows what it might be - I'll try and get one later].

The alliums have come up and seem to be about to flower [not sure if they'll manage it before Monday Judith].

I was trying to put in another photo of the foxgloves, which looked amazing in the sunshine, but blogger won't let me [tried three times now so I'm giving up]. Again we had 6 bags of weeds but I don't seem to have re-homed anymore wildlife this time.

Sara

27/06/12 more weeding

Because we ran out of time on Monday, but we'd seen a real eyesore near the bus terminus, Linda arranged an evening session to clear the raised bed near Beeston Primary School [well it's some primary school in Beeston anyway].

These were some of the bags of weeds and rubbish from Monday afternoon

and this is on Wednesday evening [it was quite warm even at 8pm when we finished] when we had collected 4 more bags of weeds and filled 2 brown wheelie bins [one was Susan's that she brought with her and the other was 'volunteered' by a passing member of the public desperate not to be press ganged into helping us and wishing he'd never made a comment on what we were doing in the first place]. When I got home with my share of the rubbish I discovered that I'd also relocated some ants [there were loads on the wall] in the boot of my car.

I hope the judges appreciate all this effort but the sad thing about removing weeds is that unless you saw the before picture you can't realise how much of an improvement has been made. I must take more before pictures!

Sara