Timayane Day at Prince Henry’s

Once again pupils and teachers from Prince Henry’s Grammar school have been working with us today on 3 projects : planting a wildflower bed in Courthouse St car park, renovating a sensory flowerbed at Union Court and adding climbers to their new trellising, and replanting a flowerbed in Charles St car park which we haven’t quite finished yet. Thank you again folks, you were fabulous.

You can read about last year’s Timayane Day here. And in 2017 pupils planted up up the lamppost planters, which will be displayed around Otley:

They braved some wet and windy weather to plant up the big new three-tiered planter which replaces the tubs on Kirkgate.

They planted up the square wooden planters in Orchardgate:

And they weeded and tidied up at Gasworks Corner, the Community Garden in Cambridge Street:

Many thanks for all your help, all of you, and hope you enjoyed your day.

Bremner Street corner

Bremner Street corner was tidied up again this weekend.  The condition of the corner was pretty good. Not too much litter (thanks, Otley), only about a bin bag full.

The majority of the work was to clear the name of the road, weed at the front of the corner and trim back those bushes which were growing onto the pavement.  Behind the front bushes there was a bit of scrubbing up of small plants and a discussion on what to do with the laurels in the midst and the opportunity to plant another fine tree at the rear. 

Lovely weather with small birds singing their hearts out.  Thanks to everyone for turning up and helping.

We put out new bird boxes in the winter and that is one of the reasons the birds were singing.

Bremner Street corner last got a tidy-up in July 2017.

Fire station recycled

To celebrate the latest Tour de Yorkshire we thought we should replace the willow bikes, that had survived for 5 years, with some re-cycled ones. Six of us tidied up …

we tried the three bikes in different positions …

the fire station gave us a cuppa …

we planted up the bike baskets …

and we managed to do all this and keep dry.

Springfield Place cleaned up

Otley in Bloom met to tidy up the space in front of the advertising hordings by Springfield Place on Sunday 24th of March. It was a beautiful sunny day and around 12 of us cleared all the litter that had accumulated of the past few years, dug out the massive weeds, planted a line of small Box plants, planted a young tree inside a wooden frame and prepared the space for further planting. To protect the area from cars and vans parking on the space we then set large stones into the earth, leveled the surface, sprinkled grass seed on the unplanted spaces and gravel around the Box plants.

The objective is to provide a low maintenance area and the design tries to control weeds and simplify grass cutting while offering security from traffic.

It was a great morning out and the cake was fantastic!

Birdbox clean-up

We’ve been out cleaning and replacing our bird boxes, removing damaged ones and adding a few more. The great news is that every box had a nest in it. We have started using this new style with a metal sheet around the hole to prevent predation and a hinged lid so you can get inside them easily to clean them.  Who wants to raise their young in a dirty nest?

Your job for the week is to clean out any bird boxes in your garden ready for the new season. Removing old nests and giving them a wash prevents the build-up of pests and diseases.