Wildlife – Otley in Bloom

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

Wharfemeadows Park update August

The last 3 months has been a steep learning curve. The soil in the beds has proven to have poor water retaining properties. We have tried to develop beds that show that any gardener can maintain a garden with very insect-friendly plantings without having to move completely over to a wildflower planting.

Watering and weeding has proven to be a major part of looking after these beds, which we expect to reduce in coming years as we build up the organic material in the beds and remove weed seed.

These beds are buzzing, full of colour and being enjoyed by local families.

Many thanks to those who stopped to talk and discuss the plants, also lots of thanks to those who have helped water and weed.

Inner Wheel Club of Otley Chevin supports Otley in Bloom

Way back in January, the members of Otley Chevin Inner Wheel Club voted to support a Community effort as their contribution to Inner Wheel Day. They approached the Otley in Bloom Committee, who were taking over some of the beds in Wharfemeadows Park because Leeds Parks. did not have the funds to continue to plant these up. Four beds have been taken over by Otley in Bloom and filled with perennial plants, almost 20 different varieties, including Cornflowers, Scabious, Lavender, Geraniums, Echinacea, Crocosmia, Hellebores, Salvias and Sedums, in addition to spring flowering bulbs.

Members gathered in the park to learn about the choice of plants, which were attracting many bees, to hear about the plan for the beds and to present a cheque to Penny Rhodes from the Otley in Bloom in support of the project. The photo shows President Pam Beck presenting the cheque, accompanied by members of the Otley Chevin Club, in front of one of the beds in the park.

Butterfly garden in Gallows Hill nature reserve

We were asked to plant a Butterfly garden in the car park of this nature reserve. The area given over to us is reasonably large with a young conker sapling growing in the middle which will eventually destroy our planting but for the next few years we should be able to offer nectar and flowering plants for an extended season and for a range of butterflies.

First we had to dig over the space and mark it using gifted stones to stop cars parking on it. Then, using leaf mold from the uncleared streets of Otley, plants from our gardens, some re-cycled plants from Leeds Parks (by agreement) and some bought in plants we managed to plant this up. We decided to use the weed surpressing medium to cut down on maintenance and that should stay covered up with the leaf mold. Only time will tell. Let’s hope for a bit of rain as this is an impossible site to keep watered.

And a final touch, a sign.

May 2022

We came back to tidy up the bed today and to deal with what turned out to be the results of a four week drought. We added some new plants (thanks Phil Knight) plus some others from the allotment and member’s gardens have filled in the holes.

We have also put up a rudimentary fence using local dead tree branches to offer targets for visiting dogs. Hopefully if they use these twigs they will stop marking the plantings.

Yorkshire in Bloom 2021

With YiB unable to attend Otley to carry out a full review of the place this year, under Covid, things have been a little different. However, thanks to the work of our excellent treasurer, we managed to win two awards.

These were for our litter clearing projects back at the start of the year and our on going work to support pollinators, wildplants and animals.

BT Garden 2021

The year started well for our wildflower project at BT’s telephone exchange on Charles Street. The area that OiB and Wildlife Friendly Otley seeded last September showed some interesting plants developing. We marked out the zone that we wanted left alone and placed a sign at the entrance to the land in February. The plan, agreed with BT, was for just one mowing this first year in September.

Flowers started to appear not only in the seeded area but also in the rest of the site. By May, with bluebells and other wildflowers in abundance, the un-mowed garden was starting to look like the meadow-in-the-middle-of-the-town we hoped it would become.

By June some of the plants were over 4 feet tall and the place was buzzing with insects. Someone kicked over the sign that explained what we were trying to do, but given the stress of Covid we sort of understood that.

Then on 4th June the mowers came and cut the whole area.

Obviously this was a blow, particularly for the volunteers who had done the work. We discussed the situation with BT and learnt that their mowing contractor had tried to cut as high as possible. Looking forward, they will try to limit the mowing to March and late August. We have yet to see what survives into the autumn, when it will be time to decide what needs to be done to recover this.

BT Garden Autumn 21

After the mid season cut in 21, BT didn’t cut the garden at all in the Autumn. OiB stepped in and mowed just the large rectangular area. Wildlife friendly Otley came in and added further wildflower seedings after we had mowed. Let’s see what happens in 2022.

BT Garden Spring 22

Up until May 22 BT has not come back to mow this garden and OiB has done nothing to change the garden so let’s see what the results are.