Bremner Street – 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.

General Maintenance in May

May is such a great time around Otley to carry out the first big clean up after the late winter weather. Recently we have been out dead-heading daffodils in the Barrier planters and the rose bed of the Firestation. Litter picking of the garden at Bremner Street opposite Asda has to be done. The amazing Nectar beds close to the Prince Henry’s crossing needed 4 large bags of weeds to be taken out of it and clearing Myers beck of Balsam to minimise flooding in the winter on such a lovely warm day made sinking into the mud in wellies a real pleasure. Why not come along and help out, just watch Facebook for the next project. https://www.facebook.com/Otleyinbloom

Summer 2021

The second summer under covid has been interesting. We have had more time to plan and more time to find safe ways of working together while maintaining the various planters and beds around town.

Our most regular area of work continues to be the barrier planters, firstly our thanks must go to Otley Bid who have paid for much of the watering on these planters this year, to Leeds House which picked up watering the two large planters in the Market Square, the Milk Bar Cafe and Deli who look after the pyramid planter in Manor Square and Nam Jam Thai who fill the planter next to their restaurant with herbs and of course all the other shops who pick up their local planter too many to name.

Sustaining the barrier planters is a new project for us since Leeds council gave up this work, we have moved the planting to be more drought toleratant and to be perennial, using our allotment to overseason plants before we can bring the same plant back for a second or more years.

In terms of the large Weston Lane bed we have tried to keep that tidy but the plantings are so successful and the space so full of bees that it is hard to know exactly what to cut back and what to leave growing during our various visits. What start as flowers in the summer become seed pods to feed birds in the late autumn. A real joy of a bed. Though this Broom is having a trim back in the autumn.

The Nectar Beds in WharfeMeadows are much the same and seem to need a lot of work but the buzz of health pervades the area from March into November so it is going well.

The Bremnar Street garden is very healthy and now seems to need three cut backs a year, one before bird nesting season, an early August trim and then a final September cut back. It would be great if Otley Council could get the badly placed sign post moved so that wheelchaired pedestrians had easier passage on the pavement.

The recycling centre Ellar Ghyll bed is pretty much self sufficient with only a certain amount of weeding and litter needing clearing on a regular basis. The rose hips and the connection up to the Ghyll beck make a nice extention to the nature path here. However, some of the small trees planted here are getting a bit big.

The various other “gates” to Otley continue to be planted up with a seasonal sequence of flowers.

Autumn clean-up

October and November are always busy months for OiB, even more so when Covid is causing constantly changing restrictions on how many people can meet out of doors. During this period we do a lot of tidying up. So various individuals managed to get out and tidy up the Charles St car park, a number of planters around town, flower beds on Weston Lane and Bremner Street corner, as well as smaller sites. All socially distanced or keeping in a bubble, of course.

Bremner Street 2020

Annually OiB tidy up the small park on the corner of Bremner Street. This area holds two bird boxes, some well developed small trees and, on the frontage, small bulbs and plants. It tends to overgrow its space each year so we wait for all the birds to have completed nesting and then cut it back. This year, constraints at the council recycling centre meant we kept the debris on site to compost down safely. Most years we also litter pick the space within the area and we did that again but the litter levels were smaller than usual.

Restrictions on numbers of Otley Bloomers (6 maximum) due to Covid meant that we had to limit participants, but we managed to do a good job in just a short while. No chance for our usual cake and coffee though!