Tewkesbury in Bloom

In these challenging times, lots of us will be out in our gardens.  There is evidence to suggest that being outdoors and in our gardens is good for our mental health.  Here is an article we have found from Paul Steed, a Horticultural Therapist: 

During this time of isolation, it could be easy to become lethargic and quite depressed whilst remaining at home. However, if you have a garden then take the opportunity to spend some time each day pottering around outside, providing of course that you are in a safe situation and at a distance from others!

The whole principle of therapeutic gardening is being outdoors and connecting with nature. The combination of fresh air, listening to the birds and physically working with plants makes gardening so good for our health and well-being, as we are intrinsically connected to nature. Being outside and part of nature plays an important part in keeping us healthy. Too much time spent in artificial surroundings has been proven to affect our mental well-being. It doesn’t matter if you only have a tiny garden. Getting out and relaxing whilst pottering about will work wonders for releasing stress and giving you a positive, optimistic feeling.

Even just potting up plants, sowing seed or taking cuttings will give you great stress relief and also get your body, limbs hands and fingers moving. It is great cognitive therapy and watching crops grow will be good for maintaining optimism and morale. If you’re lucky to have a garden with a lawn then mowing is great physical exercise to give the whole body a work out, the same with hoeing, weeding and sweeping.

Think of the time that you spend in the garden as a trip out of the house and an opportunity for a physical workout, as if going to a gym but with nicer floral surroundings! It will help to give you something positive to focus on and if you’re able to grow some vegetables, then all the better!! Luckily we are heading towards the summer and the growing season which will give us the opportunity to get out and get gardening.

Stay safe during these difficult days and keep on gardening.

Tewkesbury's gardening volunteers have faced a tough few months this year with severe flooding affecting Victoria Pleasure Gardens no less than two times with just a couple of weeks respite between each episode covering the paths with silt and mud. Therefore a decision has been made not to enter the competition this year. 

We have now heard just 2 weeks ago that due to corona-virus both the Regionals and National finals have had to be cancelled. 

A spokesperson from Britain in Bloom said "This is a worldwide and unprecedented challenging time for so many people and of course the health and safety of communities, volunteers and judges remains our number one priority".  

"With the Government advising everyone to follow social distancing measures, it is sadly not currently possible for finalists to carry out their usual community gardening activities". 

"Communities put huge year-round effort into Britain in Bloom to the benefit of both people and the environment and we know our 70 finalists will be very disappointed.  The decision has not been taken lightly and we hope that many groups will want to participate again in 2021.

"We thank those involved for all the hard work they've put in so far to make the UK a cleaner, greener and more beautiful place, and their amazing community spirit that will be very important to people in the difficult times ahead". 

Tewkesbury's Town Mayor, Christine Danter travelled with committee members, Karen and Brian to Burton this week to find out if volunteers have worked hard enough this year to earn an award in the Heart of England in Bloom competition.   
We are pleased to announce that our efforts have paid off, and we have retained our Gold medal for another successive year.

The National Final results will be announced on 19th October - watch this space! 

Friends of Victoria Gardens held another successful Open Day this year. The park was packed with young and old enjoying the sunshine.  Ice creams and cream teas were on offer and entertainment was provided by a local choir and the Gloucester Charter Band,  

We were very pleased to welcome employees from Kingsbridge Financial Services in June who helped to spruce up the town in readiness for judging.  Team members swapped computer keyboards for paint brushes and gave the town centre benches a new lick of paint as well as the bell shaped bollards located on the bridge at Healings Mill.

We've worked in partnership with Jackie Dean of BlueBell Wood Florist and run our popular  Flower Fun workshops again this half term.  The children spent the morning  with Jackie making flower cones using their creativity & having fun while learning about flowers and design.  At the end of the free session the youngsters were able to take home their handy work and share the flowers with friends and family.    We really enjoy working with the next generation of gardeners and hope we may have inspired them to have a go at home or even be a future Tewkesbury in Bloom volunteer! 

We've now officially heard that the BBC2 programmers have scheduled the In Bloom TV series for April.  Tune in on Monday 16 April at 6.30 pm to follow the story of 15 gardening groups across the UK as they get stuck in to amazing gardening projects from the challenge of entering the Britain in Bloom competition to rounding up enough volunteers to make positive changes in their own community, you will be able to follow their highs and lows.

The show runs every weekday evening for 3 weeks and Tewkesbury's own show is aired on Monday 30 April.

See if you can recognise anyone you know! 


Image shows the public enjoying the open day at Victoria Gardens

We feared that the self watering railing planters located along the riverside walk at Back of Avon would have to be taken down after a spate of vandalism this summer resulted in every display being damaged over a period of under two months.  Despite using the manufacturer’s recommended fixings and tightening the railings to reduce play, we have been unable  to prevent the planters from being a target for the vandals.

Sponsorship secretary Shelby Powell commented “Some members of the committee thought we might have to remove the railing planters, but a number of people commented that if we could add additional brackets to the bottom of each planter this could prevent the planters from being moved”.

The vast majority of the project is funded by individuals and local businesses through sponsorship monies and volunteers faced the difficulty of raising enough funds to pay for replacement parts damaged as a result of the vandalism as well as additional funding for the design and installation of additional brackets.

Two town centre businesses came forward and donated £150 towards replacement parts including the internal trays in which the plants are secured within the planter.  The donations came from Nickie Philipson-Stow of the Orange Pig and Jackie Dean of Bluebell Wood florist shop.

Local precision sheet metal fabricators, Precision Engineering Pieces, based at Ashchurch Business Centre came forward to design, manufacture and fit the additional brackets required to provide more security for the planters at no cost to the volunteers.

Senior programmer Nick Lyons who has worked for the company for over thirty years has been responsible for fitting the prototype brackets at the riverside location.  Volunteers at Tewkesbury in Bloom have been suitably impressed by the design and finish and have asked Nick to produce enough brackets for all eight planters.

Chris Grant general manager at PEP comments “Precision Engineering Pieces are only too happy to help the community and assist in deterring vandalism in our local beauty spot”.

The winter plants are currently being grown at Cornerways Ways nursery at Twyning, and will be installed inside the planters as soon as the work has been completed by the team at PEP. 

As you will all know, in the summer we secured the "best in category" award for towns of our size throughout the whole of the Midlands in the Regional competition. One of the larger towns Oswestry was chosen to go through to the National In Bloom competition. Tewkesbury represented the Region in 2015 and had found this quite challenging: given our rather limited resources. However, the decision belatedly has just be made to invite us, one of the smaller towns to represent the Region. To be invited to do this twice in three years is a remarkable honour. 



The 2015 team 


John Badham Chair comments "Now that Cheltenham has withdrawn from the competition, we will be the only Gloucestershire representative. Bear in mind 2015 was the first occasion that the Town had competed in the Britain in Bloom competition. This now gives us a real chance of being judged the very best smaller blooming town in the whole UK. Imagine what such a prospect could mean for the town's profile - all immensely helpful to both the morale and economy of our little town. We have accepted this invitation with some trepidation. We learnt in 2015 that we needed more help and coordination to really achieve an exceptional result. This means that success will require all of us, including the various Councils, to work together- more businesses will need to put up hanging baskets, the whole town will need to be properly weeded and street furniture will need sprucing up. In short we will need to demonstrate to the national judges a real pride in our town. This cannot just be the task of a dozen largely older volunteers! Our new chairman Karen Brennan and the committee have taken up this challenge. We appeal to whole community to make sure that we achieve something that will make a real difference to this town's future. If you feel you can help please let us know",