At long last...a new home for the tripe baths

We are very pleased to report that after being in storage for many months, and with great thanks to Farmac, the tripe baths were safely transported to their new home in the Lowtown garden very early on the morning of November 6th.

It was quite a military operation, but with many hands on deck things went like clockwork.
Just after 8am, the truck arrived from Farmac carrying its precious load.

Then they were lifted off on the hoist and transported on wheels up the path:

It took four strong men to move them into position and a bag of rubble was emptied into each one to add even more weight and help reduce the amount of compost needed to fill them.

Now all that needed doing was a bit of planting, I`ve heard of `crock in the pot` but this was on a rather large scale!

And finally here`s what they look like planted up, perhaps not the prettiest of planting troughs but they certainly are historical and have had an amazing journey, this should now be their home for a very long time to come. The Civic Society have also played a large part in this adventure and are funding some plaques that we will postion near the baths to tell folk all about them, have a look next time you visit the garden, oh and many thanks to `Lightbite` who kindly made us a cup of coffee!

The Tripe baths are coming home!

Thanks to Farmac building supplies and the civic society who are arranging the transportation of the old tripe baths that have been in storage since the start of the bus station build.
On the 6th November they will be moved to their new home in the Lowtown garden, with a bit of help from friends.
Photos and a post on this event to follow.

It`s that time of year again!

Time to start the replanting of the troughs and flower tubs with primulas, pansies and bulbs. Twenty troughs to plant up, that`s quite a feat!
Trying to make Pudsey looking its best at the moment is a challenge with the continuing mayhem caused by the building of the new bus station, but the end is in sight, and in the meantime we carry on with the good work...we hope that everyone appreciates our efforts!

And here they are!

We mangaed to get the fist sign in place in one of the flower beds in Pudsey today during our `pre-judging` tidy. It`s only temporary for the moment until we get time to cement them in, but at least we can show it to the `Yorkshire In Bloom` judges when they visit tomorrow.

New signs for the Flower Beds

As we work so hard trying to improve the flower beds in Pudsey, we wanted people to see the areas the group have planted, as many still are under the impression that it is Leeds City Council who are doing the hard work. We have used some of the grant money we received from YEP `cash in the community`to have some new signs made that will shortly be appearing. Thanks to Warbla Forge for making them for us and to Teal Signs for the very eye-catching design.

Leeds wins GOLD at Chelsea!

I was fortunate to visit the RHS Chelsea flower show this year, my first ever visit. How wonderful too that Leeds City Council won its first Gold medal with their `Hesco Garden 2010`

The garden created by the council`s Parks and Countryside service with support from sponsors Hesco Bastion Ltd.attracted huge interest as the show was visited by over 150,000 people from all over the world! Based on the Leeds-Liverpool canal, the garden had a stunning centrepiece- a pair of twelve feet high lock gates and a canal section.The garden made history three times over: Leeds City Council`s first ever gold award at Chelsea; the first time any local authority has won a gold medal for an outdoor show garden in the history of the event and the first time a water feature of its type has ever been seen at Chelsea. Apparently offers were made to buy the garden, including one person who wanted to take it back to Dallas in America, but have no fear it is heading back to Leeds with the intention of putting it permanently in one of the public parks in Leeds within one year.

Even better news, as a yorkshire lass, I was invited to take a special tour of the garden, I felt like a celebrity!

Another winner for our region was the Yorkshire Rhubarb Cumble and custard Garden ,as well as winning a Silver medal it was also awarded the peoples vote for best in show in the courtyard gardens section:

Flower beds in the car park rejuvenated!

Remember back in February, the group were keen to do something to revamp the flower beds in the leisure centre car park? Well we are pleased to say that thanks to a grant we were given from YEP `cash in the community` this project is now underway and already looking much better. Some areas have had cobbles laid down, this seemed the best solution as the trees that were there originally had been vandalised and cars were constantly driving over the soil, now with the cobbles it is much more practical and looks better.

This took a lot of hard work, as the ground had become very compacted after a long period of neglect, and it took an awful lot of digging to try and make the soil workable! We have planted some berberis thunbergii (Atropurpurea), ceanothus, broom (cytisus), some pink geranium, grasses, some tall veronicastrum and cornflowers (centaurea). These will take a while to establish, but already people are commenting on how much better the area looks.

Update on Library Flower Beds

The two flower beds next to the library were rebuilt by the council and then planted by Pudsey In Bloom, they are now becoming established with a good mixture of perennials, shrubs and spring bulbs. One thing that went when the tired old beds were replaced were two flowering cherry trees, and following comments from last years judges who felt the beds could do with some added height, we decided to replant a flowering cherry in each bed. Although only planted earlier this year, they have had lovely blossom on them, and with luck will go from strength to strength.

Pudsey businesses support In Bloom

Pudsey, like any other town is eager to promote local shopping, and many of the businesses in Pudsey have joined together in the last 12 months to work together and promote a `shop local` campaign. They, like Pudsey In Bloom, are keen to show people what Pudsey has to offer, the business group has recently sponsored some of the flower troughs in the town centre, a good way to try and get their message across......take a look at the website advertised and see for yourself what local shops we have.

Spring Judging

This took place on Monday 19th April, and members of the group showed the two judges around our town, highlighting its strong points, meeting volunteers who help with the work and looking at the various projects we have undertaken so far. We will need to wait until the end of May for some feedback, but the afternoon went well.

Some areas we would like to improve!

Our walk around Pudsey yesterday helped us to identify some small areas of land that really are looking neglected. Once we have the necessary permission to begin work on them, we will start making these look much more attractive!

Most of these areas have either been used as public thoroughfares, with people trampling over the grass and plants, others have just been neglected over the years with shrubs left unpruned.

And there are areas in the car park where attempts had been made to plant trees but unfortunately these have been vandalised, and are now just driven over!

We hope that by the end of the year Pudsey folk will begin to see a definite improvement.

New Year, first meeting...new projects!

We had our first meeting of 2010 in January, and are once again all fired up to enter Pudsey into the Yorkshire In Bloom Competition...the year started well with a couple of new members and a boost to our bank balance, as towards the end of 2009 we were again successful in our applications for funding both from the Pudsey Borough Charity (£200) and the YEP cash in the community awards (£900)




This money has been `earmarked` for the development of some neglected areas around Pudsey, and this will be the main focus of this year`s activities.



This week we are meeting to identify some areas that we can work on, and then we will be able to plan what we would like to do.



See the next post for some pictures.

Oh..What a winter!!

We have just had one of the worst winters (or start of winter!) since the 1960`s........a wander round Pudsey shows what the troughs looked like in December 2009...hope to have a more colourful contrast to take pictures of come Spring 2010!