Tewkesbury in Bloom

We've set a date to announce the winners of the Tewkesbury Town Mayor's In Bloom competition.  Put Monday 19 October in your diaries!  Go to our events page for more information 

Volunteers Emma Booth (The Bell Hotel) & Brian Reeve (The Handyman Centre) have returned today from the Heart of England in Bloom's Award Ceremony at Rugby with a Gold Award.  

We are also honored to pick up the 'Best in Category' award for the second year running.

Congratulations too to Emma and her team at The Bell Hotel who picked up a Gold Award in their own category.


Image shows RHS judges (Roger Bache & Mark Wiltshire)
with Town Mayor and Chairman John Badham during the
regional  judging day (20 July 2015). 

The railings at Back of Avon have been given a new lick of black paint thanks to volunteers from the local Natwest Bank. Employees swapped keyboards for paint brushes for the day and got stuck in to transform the popular riverside walk. Five local businesses chipped in to provide financial support for paint and equipment including:

Kingdom Interiors
Tewkesbury Cards & Gift Shop
Sweets & Treats Ice Cream Cart
Nicky's Cakes
Tewkesbury Cookshop

The activities of  Tewkesbury in Bloom volunteers haven't gone unappreciated by the local wildlife population, and a large colony of bees decided to set up home in one of the Bishops Walk hanging baskets outside Woody's Fruit & veg shop.  As you can see from the picture, the hanging basket was turned into a very comfortable hive by these uninvited insects, craftily setting up home with a delicious food supply just a few feet underneath them!  

Volunteers can now breath a sign of relief, the national judging day on Monday went without a hitch and its just a matter now of waiting until October to see if we have done enough to impress!

National judges Brendan and Ian arrived the evening before at the railway station to be greeted by John who gave them a quick tour of the community gardening project at the station before dropping them off at The Bell Hotel.  

  

Judging started promptly at 9.15 am and along the route we had a few surprises up our sleeve!  We had a town centre busker, the Town Crier greeted the national judges at the Town Hall with his loudest  'oyez', the bell ringers at The Abbey were on standby and at Victoria Gardens the Heart & Soul choir performed a medley of musical numbers.

Also a big thank you to Carolyn Johnson who kindly moored her beautiful boat at Back of Avon to compliment our freshly painted footbridge.  This did not go unnoticed by the judges who complimented volunteers for taking on such a big project with members of the community.

A few weeks before the national judging date, volunteers decided the town needed an extra uplift.  Road signs, bollards & bus shelters were looking dirty and grimy, but how could these be tackled in a public space without access to ladders and water?

In stepped local window cleaner, Gary Thompson of Cotswold Cleaning and Maintenance to save the day.  He worked round the clock the week before the judging day with his pole and brush. The high street bus shelters were cleaned to such a high standard, Gary even managed to remove the sticky residue traces left over from old posters.

Generous business owner, Vikki Griffiths of Mary P's Day Nursery sponsored Gary's big clean for which we are very grateful. 

Generous business owner Diane Davies of Avonside Taxis has sponsored one of Tewkesbury in Bloom's community projects which it is hoped will spread some floral cheer in the town during the summer months. 

 

Regulars at  Tewkesbury's 'Drop in' centre Joy, Nick and Richard were invited to plant troughs of brightly coloured dahlia flowers for the high street for Britain In Bloom judges to inspect during their visit to the town.   The trio spent the morning at Cornerways nursery in Twyning with Brian Williams learning how to plant annual bedding plants into containers aided by Tewkesbury in Bloom volunteer Alan Mitton.   As a special thank you for their hard work, Brian gave each volunteer plants of their choice to care for at home.

The floral displays were used to brighten up key areas of the High Street such as empty shops and in front of the Town Hall. Now that judging has been completed, the displays have been donated to Tewkesbury Hospital for the community to enjoy during the remainder of the summer months. Some of the displays will also be heading to Tewkesbury Day Care Centre. 

Tewkesbury in Bloom volunteer Shelby Powell comments "Projects such as these are only possible with the help of generous support from businesses like Avonside and Cornerways for which we are indebted.   The work our volunteers have done in the community as part of the In Bloom project has been exceptional this year,  and it has been a real privilege to work with our more socially isolated community members. We have worked hard to make the project inclusive to bring the whole community together".  

We were overwhelmed by the number of individuals who turned up last Sunday for our final weeding session before the regional judging day - around 30!  We were also very fortunate to have help from Willmott Dixon employees who are the contractors currently building the town's new swimming pool and leisure facilities.


Willmott Dixon did not come empty handed either - volunteers were issued with high viz jackets and brooms plus other useful equipment which certainly came in very handy!

We were very impressed with how hard every volunteer worked and want to say a special thank you to Mr and Mrs Wagstaff who at 80 years young put in 2 hours of volunteering each!

We took the volunteers to The Bell afterwards for refreshments (sponsored by The Bell) and to enjoy homemade cakes baked by fellow volunteer.

Around 25 bags of weeds, litter and dirt were filled and later removed by staff from Tewkesbury Borough Council for which we are very grateful. 

Volunteers from Tewkesbury in Bloom have been involved in an ambitious project to re-paint a popular footbridge providing access for residents and visitors from the town to The Ham.  The Ham is an ancient water meadow which has been designated a Scientific Site of Special Interest (SSSI) due to the diversity of its flora and fauna.

The bridge is in the ownership of the County Council who estimated to re-paint the bridge it would cost at least £100,000 by a contractor and would require scaffolding and possibly a temporary closure of the bridge.

However, volunteers have now painted  the bridge (the accessible parts) for under £500 and have completed the work in under two weeks without having to close the bridge.  

The next stage is to hang baskets of flowers from both sides of the bridge which have been kindly sponsored by a local company. 

The weekend's Open Garden event was a success. Victoria Gardens was packed with happy families and local residents sitting in the sunshine or enjoying tea on the lawn. There was also delicious ice-cream available, a number of stalls and entertainment was provided by Gloucester Charter Band.