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!