window box – 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

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.

North Parade window box project

North Parade 2023 window box project

OIB noticed that there were some lovely window boxes and planters on North Parade. But… there were so many front windows that didn’t have any boxes. Given that it is a relatively high traffic residential street we thought a few more would be nice. This summer we managed to build and plant twelve. Other neighbours joined in and added another two to window sills.

All the compost is peat-free and the plants are those that were vigorous and in the market that day.

With care and lots of rain, they grew…

and they grew…

and they grew.

Thanks to everyone on North Parade who contributed.

OIB window boxes

How to make a window box that does not need screwing into the stone frame or sill

OIB have designed, made and planted some 12 window boxes in North Parade this year. We are keen to share the design of the box as we think it is a useful tool for the windows of Otley.

The idea was to design a wooden box that fits onto those stone window sills that sit directly on Otley streets but does not require any drilling into the stone structure. We do this by clamping the box against the uprights of the window. This clamp force comes from T nuts and bolts in each end. We consider that this design needs at least 135mm of stone from the window frame to the front edge of the stone window vertical, we call this dimension “D”. Some stone windows are just not suitable as the glass/plastic window frame has been mounted too far forward, or too much damage has occured to the stone.

The first step is to measure “A”, the angle to the vertical, the length of the window box space “L” (minus a couple of mm to allow the box to fit in) and the depth of the stone space “D”. Make a note of any aerial cables, bits of steel in the stone, filler left over from the window installation and other possible problems. Nearly all of these can be overcome by modifying the wooden box.

Measuring Dimension A and D

We base all our designs on treated rough wood 22mm by 150mm. We find 3.6 metres of this is enough for most designs but it is borderline so measure and calculate carefully. If you use too little wood the box ends up too small and dries out during a sunny day.

We then make the end blocks. Each end block consists of a piece to sit inside the box into which most other parts will be screwed and one to sit on the end to support the T nut.

Using our A dimension we can cut these parts of the ends. Then screw one to the other leaving space for the main structure to sit around the interior end.

Using the length L dimension of the window and accounting for the two exterior end pieces we can cut three pieces to make up this structure.

You can now screw the structure together and then drill the ends for the T nuts. They want to be as close to the back surface as possible while still leaving enough space to get access to the bolt head in situ. 35mm seems about right. NB, the nut is hammered in from the outside and the bolt goes through the hole in the end piece to reach the nut. We use M8 zinc electroplated parts and the bolt need sufficient length to get through the end pieces and still have enough clamp distance left on the thread. 65mm seems about right but it depends on quality of stone, tightness of fit etc.

Note the sacrificed hole on the right to fit around an aerial cable.

While you have a large drill with you, please drill a few holes, 2 to 3 large 8 or 9mm diameter, in the base to ensure free draining of the box.

Now find a soft drinks can, any street litter will do, just not damaged. Cut off the ends taking care not to cut yourself. Cut one length and you have a large sheet of aluminium. Cut in half, fold in half and tidy up to remove sharp edges. Bend the top end and voila, a sheet to protect the stone from the bolt ends.

The Blue Peter moment when you get to use a sharp knife..

and now pliers and a hammer.

After the application of a some paint and perhaps an organisation’s logo you can fit it into position. Now all you need is some peat free compost, plants and water.

Note aluminium drops over the box end to sit between the bolt end and the stone.