Category: barrier planters

Otley in Bloom 2025 Chairperson’s Report

The past year has seen Otley in Bloom continuing to maintain all of the areas we have worked on over the past few years. We weed, we cut things back and we plant new things to replace old ones which have come to the end of their time or to add more colour and life to existing displays.

Wharfemeadows Park Large Perennial Beds

In May 2022 we took over the planting and maintenance of the four large flower beds in Wharfemeadows Park. The maintenance of these beds is the biggest of the tasks that we have. We got something of shock in March this year when we learned that one of the four beds was being dug up to form the footing for the temporary footbridge, whilst the work on the 13th century bridge over the river Wharfe takes place. With less than a day’s notice we rounded up a team to go and try to salvage some of the plants.


The bed should be reinstated as it was, once the works to the bridge have finished and in the spring of 2026 Otley in Bloom will work hard to replant it to the original planting plan. Our objective will be to make it match the other three beds, though it will take a some time for the plants to mature and catch up with those in the other beds.


Thankfully the other three beds were unaffected by the works and these continue to thrive.

Hanging Baskets at the Buttercross


In May we bought new hanging baskets for the Buttercross, with holes all round so that they would give a good flower display from underneath. They have looked lovely this year. Planting up hanging baskets for the Buttercross will now become one of our regular annual tasks.

Otley Green Fair

In June we had a table at the Otley Green Fair in the Courthouse. This was to chat to people and let them know the sort of things we do and in the hope of recruiting some new members. We had a good day there and did get lots of interest.

Replanting the Unloved Planters

This year we decided it was time to do something about a number of very shabby looking planters around the town centre that were making our lovely town look less lovely. We are already responsible for a significant number of planters around the town centre and we pay for a third party to water them all. The watering bill already eats away around half of the funds we have to work with each year. So we did a small campaign on Facebook asking whether if we replanted the planters, any of the businesses nearby would be willing to take on watering one. Very happily we got a positive response from several local
businesses and so we managed to turn some sad and scruffy looking planters into some beautiful attractive flower filled planters. We are most grateful to these businesses for their support and for helping to make out town look beautiful.

Miscellaneous Work

As always we also got involved with a bit of balsam bashing, general tidying up of buddleia that was overhanging the footpath and litter picking in whatever area we work on. We installed three new barrier planters at the request of a shop owner to help improve the area outside their shop and we cut back the ivy on the wall of the parish church and tidied up the square planters underneath there. We will soon be bulb planting to add more flowers to several areas of the town. Overall we’ve had a very busy year.


Otley in Bloom is a happy little band of volunteers and it’s fair to say we enjoy what we do but we are always looking out for new members. Memberships is free and open to everyone.
Find us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Otleyinbloom or email at
otleyinbloom@gmail.com or on our website https://otleyinbloom.co.uk

Chairman’s report 2024

The weather.
Clearly the year has not ended yet but with 2023 and 2022 being the hottest ever recorded years we can presume that climate change will make 2024 a hot year. In Otley our summer was slightly cooler than recent years, and wetter, which significantly reduced our need to water. Both spring and autumn have been warmer than historical norms, bringing flowering of many plants forward by up to four weeks.

Mowing.
Leeds Parks and Leeds Highways organise most of the public mowing around town and you can see how their work significantly changes our micro-environments. For example,their change to verge mowing is changing the shape of the tree tunnel on the bypass. Their change to mowing at the Ilkley Road underpass initially helped bring back some wildflowers but their second change has removed those same wildflowers. Moving from multiple mows to twice a year mowing and now late, single mowing will bring other changes. Poor quality mowing can cause bark-ringing which has killed trees in the town.

Ongoing projects.
The plantings with perennial plants, maintenance and watering of planters continue to be a major part of our work. We work with other voluntary organisations and Leeds Parks when they invite us to, but not with Instaplanters at the moment. This year we have seen some confusion over the Buttercross hanging baskets but we enjoyed planting up the baskets and Leeds finally ended up providing alternative ones.

Other successful ongoing projects include Wharfemeadows’ four beds, the Nectar Beds, Gallows Hill car park, various spots in Cambridge, Meyers Croft beck, 34 barrier planters, Burras Lane car park’s planters, Charles Street car park, the Ellar Ghyll recycling centre bed, Bremner Street corner and the fire station garden.

Fun projects.
All our projects are fun but some stray away from pure plantings. This year we did our second window box project, building (with Otley Maker Space), installing and planting 10 boxes on Albion Street. We built and fitted a purple wooden seat in Cambridge to replace an old one, to offer a rest point on the walk into town. We post photos every few days on Facebook to show off the best of what Otley has growing around town. Finally we took part in the Christmas tree festival and gave the £43.54 received to Hug on a Tray.

OiB is a great organisation to join, with welcoming supportive members all trying to make Otley a better place to live in. Membership is free and open to all. You can find us at https://www.facebook.com/Otleyinbloom or email us at otleyinbloom@gmail.com. As I prepare to step down as Chair of OiB after 5 years I’d like to thank all the members for their incredible support during Covid, during the development of the four massive beds in Wharfemeadows and in the day-to-day projects we have completed. Many hands really do make light work.

Bill Austin
Chair Otley in Bloom

Chairman’s report 2023

Annual report 23 showing the range of what OiB does and where money is spent.

Otley in Bloom’s work changes with the season. It starts in December with the fun of the Christmas Tree festival where, at the end of 2022, we gave away sun flower seeds and generated about £120 for the charity Horticap which focuses at helping disabled gardeners. Below I will be mentioning some of the projects we did this year but to discover more just visit www.otleyinbloom.co.uk or www.facebook.com/otleyinbloom.

In the early part of year we carried out a major task spreading 2 tonnes of manure over the four large Wharfe Meadow flower beds, providing probably the first feed and organic material those beds had received in living memory. The benefits of this work included reduced weeds and some great displays helped by some serious summer rain.

Winter and summer

Our core costs of about £550 go on a number of elements including the majority on watering of the 30+ barrier planters but also covers insurance, website and PPE. All other expenditure is focused on maintenance and development programmes around town. Water is manually carried around the town. We have asked if public or semi-public buildings could be fitted with taps but that technology seems to be beyond us.

Planters; and how to care for them

The barrier planters, the Kirkgate planters and some Insta planters were variously fed, cleared out and replanted.

A variety of beds and slightly abandoned spaces (or natural spaces depending on your point of view) were tidied, cut back or planted up. These included a bunch of spaces from Ellar Ghyll recycling centre to Weston Lane and from Charles Street car park to Gallows Hill car park.

Sometimes just stopping things is equally powerful. Asking Leeds council to reduce mowing around the Ilkley Road underpass has brought on some natural wildflowers. We now have a growing flock of Lady’s Smock or Cuckoo Flower there.

This year we have planted over 1000 crocus bulbs and unknown masses of daffodils to the east of the Pool road gate which should show up nicely in the spring.

As an experiment OiB developed a simple wooden window box with Otley Maker Space that could fit cleanly into the front windows of houses that open directly onto the street without the need to damage or drill the stone frames. We ended up providing eleven to North Parade, fully planted up, for a nominal £5. Our eleven seem to have stimulated neighbours into adding a further two of their own. We believe this has enhanced the colourful displays along this busy street.

General comments.

It is clear that litter is much improved throughout the town this year. OiB has not had to carry out a mass clean-up at all this year, probably the first time in 13 years that that can be said, so thank you to the OTC councillors, to the BID and to the people of Otley for keeping this town looking so nice.

The same cannot be said for the growing sites of artless graffiti which seems to hit our telecom boxes and other facilities all over town.

Meanwhile the contract mowers who Leeds council use around town continue to damage trees. Another two trees died this year due to poorly supervised mowing leading to bark ringing while damage to many more are just waiting to be killed.

Barrier Planters 2023

OiB have some 35 Barrier Planters around town which have been planted up since the summer 2020. Using perennial plantings and bulbs they have filled out. Now in 2023 we had to cut out plants for reuse now, cut out bulbs for re-use in the autumn and fill up with compost. Over four sessions we have finally got the work done.