Colourful bedding out has long been a feature of Cheltenham’s parks but that could be about to change. I was invited to see the trial of a new style of planting.
Cheltenham is well known for its flowers – seasonal bedding outside the Municipal Offices, large flower beds in the parks and huge hanging baskets along the main shopping areas.
It’s a style of planting that’s high on labour and cost, both to the borough council and the environment in terms of raising the bedding plants and then maintaining them. The watering alone over this year’s hot summer was an enormous task.
Now, there’s a move to replace at least some of that high-cost bedding with perennial planting schemes.
“We’re trying to move to a more sustainable form of planting, more compatible with wildlife, more diverse that doesn’t require continual watering,” explained Adam Reynolds, Green Spaces Manager at the borough council.
It’s been trialled this year in the Winston Churchill Memorial Garden, one of the smallest of Cheltenham’s parks that’s tucked away behind the Lower High Street. Once a cemetery – some of the old gravestones are still in the garden – it was bought by the council and turned into a garden in 1965.
The council has collaborated with Green Space Volunteers, a group of gardening enthusiasts who help to maintain the park and the northern end of the Honeybourne Line.
What was a scruffy area of overgrown rosemary and lavender has been replaced with a series of curved beds filled with around 1,000 wildlife friendly perennials, partly funded by a European grant.
The scheme, drawn up by Cheltenham designer Lorraine Du Feu, has a soft colour palette of mauve, yellow and blue with helianthus, kniphofia, sedum, asters and lavender. Euphorbia and grasses add structure and there are plans to add bulbs to continue the display.
Decorative bricks made by local schoolchildren that used to be around a central fountain have been kept and they are now set into one of the paths.
There are plans to put a tree in the centre and find more permanent fencing around the beds; there’s a temporary solution there to protect the young plants from dogs.
Although they were planted only in June by the team of volunteers, the beds are already filling out thanks to the warm weather and regular watering.
“It’s been more successful this year than we thought it would be,” admitted Adam. “We thought it would gradually come into its own.”
There are around 30 Green Space Volunteers who meet at the garden twice a month to keep it tidy.
When I visited, they were busy clearing a rose bed along one of the garden’s boundaries and working on the ramp towards the Honeybourne Line, a former railway track that’s been turned into a cycle route and footpath.
“People do it for the company and because they enjoy gardening,” said volunteer Tess Beck, who is also a member of the St Paul’s Road Area Residents’ Association. “Some are local to the area and some come from quite a long way.”
A few move around, helping at several of Cheltenham’s parks. Certainly, the coffee and homemade cakes were an attraction at the Winston Churchill Memorial Garden.
Following the success of the trial scheme, Adam is hoping to extend it to other parks in the town with Sandford Park and Oxford and Priory gardens next on the list. Traditional bedding will be kept in Imperial Gardens and the Long Gardens in front of the Municipal Offices.
That’s so great. Those old fashioned colourful bedding schemes are often completely dead with no wildlife in them at all – no buzzing, no scent, no movement, no life!
Yes, the new beds had lots of bees on them. The council are starting to use a lot of wildflower mixes in the parks as well to cut down on the mowing and provide more colour.
William Robinson would be very pleased.
It is wonderful that they have so many volunteers.
There was certainly quite a crowd when I visited.