Community and City Pride Awards

At an awards ceremony last night, Pudsey In Bloom received the runner up prize in the Community And City Pride Awards for the seating area on Lowtown.
The awards are run by Leeds City Council to recognise projects that make the city cleaner and greener. The ceremony was at Leeds Civic Hall and prizes were handed out by Look North weatherman Paul Hudson.
We were in the Green Space Creation category; first prize went to Bruntcliffe school.













BEFORE

AFTER

Article in Pudsey Times

This week there is an article in the Pudsey times, mainly to thank the Borough of Pudsey Charity for the money they donated that helped to purchase plants for the newly refurbished flower beds next to the library.

You can read the article by following this link:
http://www.pudseytoday.co.uk/news/Pudsey-in-Bloom-brighten-up.4904355.jp

First Meeting of 2009

The group had their first meeting of the year on 8th January, and decided that despite any impending disruption that will inevitably be caused by the building of the new bus station, we should once again enter the Yorkshire In Bloom competition. Our next meeting has been planned for Thursday 5th February at Pudsey leisure centre starting at 6.30pm.

Library beds finally planted!

One of our main projects has been to replant the two flower beds that are next to the library, you can see by the pictures below how bad they were looking!

The council agreed to rebuild the beds and then in November `08 they filled them with soil, we then replanted them with a variety of winter -flowering shrubs, ferns, grasses, perennials and also planted some daffodils. It was a difficult area to plant as there is not much depth to the beds and also there is poor drainage and lots of shade. We are confident that the planting scheme we have chosen should ensure a vibrant colour scheme of purples, bronze, orange, yellow and white. There are evergreen plants, and some scented plants too. This summer it will be a much pleasanter place to sit and read!

Grants the group have received.

We received £300 from the Borough of Pudsey Charity in November `08 and we plan to put this money towards plants for the beds in the library square just as soon as the newly rebuilt beds are filled up with soil.

On the 12th December `08 two of our members attended an award ceremony at St. George`s crypt in Leeds, as we had been shortlisted to receive a grant from the YEP Community cash Giveaway, the awards were announced by Hilary Benn and we were thrilled to hear that Pudsey In Bloom had been given £900! We plan to spend this on an automated watering kit for the Pudsey Town hall, which will greatly reduce our annual watering bills, and also to replace some of the dilapidated benching near the permanent planting areas we have been working on.

We have also found out that Pudsey In Bloom have made the shortlist in the Community and City Pride Awards for the seating area we planted up on Lowtown, we will know the result of this after the award ceremony that takes place on 30th January at the Leeds Civic Hall, so fingers crossed we will be successful!

Mammoth Bulb planting day!

On Sunday 9th November 2008 we embarked on our mammoth planting of lots of daffodil bulbs that had been donated by Groundwork Leeds. We were very pleased that some new volunteers turned up to help, it was a cold day, but we got wrapped up and got on with the job in hand.

Daffodils were planted in the grass on Church Lane and near the Total Garage on Lowtown, as well as in the containers.

Hopefully we will be rewarded with a colourful Spring display!

Preparing for Spring Displays 2009

Throughout October and November 2008, the group were busy planting bulbs and spring bedding to ensure that there will be a colourful display in 2009. We are trying different planting schemes with the 21 barrier troughs we have in Pudsey centre. 14 of these had traditional summer bedding in them in Summer 2008 and really looked splendid, we received lots of comments about how colourful they were, this year for the first time, we bought and planted up all the troughs ourselves, we chose a colourful array of petunias, geraniums,fuschias and gazanias. It wa hard work, especially as it wasn`t a very good day for planting! But those involved all agreed it was well worth it, and we plan to do the same again next year.

In November, we again turned out on another cold and wet day to empty the summer bedding that was now getting past its best and plant up the troughs with spring bedding, most of which we had been saving throughout the summer from last years displays, otherwise the plants would just have been discarded by the council! This again saved us lots of money. In addition to the spring bedding we also planted a mixture of bulbs including: tete a tete,red robin tulips, and crocus.

In the other 7 troughs which had been planted up with drought resistant plants throughout the summer, the job was a little easier as we did not have to remove and replant, we just added a good mixture of bulbs to each of the troughs, including: alliums, (allium azureum), crocus (Barr`s Purple and snowbunting) These troughs have given a very different look throughout the summer and provide a good contrast to the other troughs. We feel we are catering for everyones tastes and at the same time doing our bit to find a greener way of planting up the containers. It will be interesting to see how these troughs develop this year: