We’ve had some good weather recently and our garden is starting to wake up. We have cyclamen, hellebores, snowdrops and the first daffodils starting to show through with lots of green shoots. I am always surprised at how many plants we have at this time of year.

Now is a good time to plan and look forward to the spring and we had our first It’s Your Neighbourhood planning meeting for the New Year at the end of January.

Fairfield will be participating in the RHS It’s Your Neighbourhood scheme again this year. The scheme is non competitive and is for community groups and individuals who want to ‘green up’ local areas with the aims of:

  • improving the local environment
  • improving biodiversity
  • enhancing the community by providing community-centric activity and enabling people to make new friends
  • offering people the opportunity to get active in our local area

Last year Fairfield was assessed as Thriving. This was a great result for our first year and our assessor gave some great feedback on things we could do to further enhance our environment.

We have used the recommendations from last year’s report, together with our own ideas, and ideas from the wider community to put together our calendar of activity for this year, which will form part of this year’s submission. There will be plenty of opportunities to get involved.

This year we will be launching our first Hanging Basket and Container Competition across Fairfield. The competition will be open to all Fairfield residents and you can enter individually or as a whole street – a great way to join together with your neighbours to enhance your area. There will be more information on this competition in next month’s edition of Fairfield Matters, with ideas for climate-appropriate and wildlife-friendly planting.

If you are interested in getting involved in our Community Gardening please contact me at gardening@fairfieldorganisations.org.uk.

Sara Chick, It’s Your Neighbourhood Coordinator

Early signs of spring: plum blossom in the West Orchard (above left) and snowdrops in the Community Garden (above right)