Project – Page 10 – Otley in Bloom

Trees on Bradford Road

Some of the trees on Bradford Road were looking decidedly crooked, and their metal guards were even worse. We don’t know how they got like this, maybe they were bashed by lawn mowers or wheelie bins, or maybe backed into by cars. Anyway for this month’s taskforce we’ve straightened them up as much as possible, removed tree ties where they were no longer needed, weeded around the base of the trees and mulched them with bark chippings, and they’re looking a lot better now. If you live on Bradford Road and there is one of our trees outside your house, maybe you’d like to help us by generally keeping an eye on it, and letting us know if there are any problems with it. We may be able to plant a few more trees along here in the future.

Birdcage Walk and Granville Terrace

Recently we tidied the planters in the layby on Birdcage Walk, and added a few more plants to brighten them up as they had suffered in the winter flooding there.

We also weeded and tidied the big flowerbed at the bottom of Granville Terrace, which is getting much more light after a tree was felled there.

Willow bicycles

Three willow bicycles, with riders, have been installed at the Fire Station, just in time for the Tour de Yorkshire tomorrow. They are made by Dragon Willow, and are the result of a collaboration between Otley in Bloom, Otley Fire and Rescue, Otley Lions and Dragon Willow, celebrating Lizzie Armitstead, the reigning World, Commonwealth and National road race champion.

Enjoy the races tomorrow!

Snowdrops at Ellar Ghyll

Here are a couple of photos of the snowdrops at Ellar Ghyll recycling Centre, planted by the workers there (thanks!), and looking good now alongside the daffodils.

Painting and fettling planters

We repainted the green wooden planters around town. We had some new volunteers this time, and got the job done in an hour.

And we fettled some of the others (in case you’re puzzled, fettling is a old Yorkshire word meaning putting something to rights, making it just right, in fact putting it into “fine fettle”.) So in this case it meant taking out dead plants, picking out litter, trimming and tidying as required.

And afterwards we had coffee and some delicious flapjack – thanks Katie!