We are certainly having some interesting weather with all the rain showers and low levels of  sunshine, it’s a big contrast to last year. Getting tomatoes to ripen is proving to be a bit of a  challenge in my garden but at the same time most of the plants in our gardens and green spaces  are loving the rain and the borders seem to be bursting at the seams. 

It’s been a busy time for our community gardening. I mentioned in my last bulletin that we had been invited to participate in the RHS Community Volunteering Forum. Lee Abbott and I attended on behalf of Fairfield. It was a lovely day with some interesting and thought-provoking insights that we will be putting into practice here at Fairfield.

As a result of our attendance we were also offered 50 plants from the RHS Hampton Court show gardens. The plants are reclaimed at the end of the show and donated to community gardening projects – how great is that! On 20 July with the help of our gardening volunteers the plants were planted out in the Community Garden. Thank you to Richard, Dennis, Penny, Gail, Lee, Angela, Ching, Adeline, Lesley and Rachel for their help on the day. 

When we were at Hampton Court we were delighted to bump into our Fairfield Park Lower School  gardeners who had a display at the show as part of the RHS Schools Programme. It was wonderful to see them and their amazing Bug Barrel (A Castle that Cares), which was so good it even featured on the BBC Gardeners World programme. Read more about A Castle That Cares here.

I noticed some comments on Facebook about the cutting of the meadows around Fairfield. I  know that this can seem counterintuitive but it is good practice to do a ‘hay cut’ in early  summer, enabling renewal of the meadow flowers and grasses – and in the orchards it is also beneficial for the health of the trees. 

Hanging Basket and Container Competition – WINNERS ANNOUNCED 

Thank you to all those who entered our Hanging Basket competition – it has been a great success. Penny Daffarn, a recently retired Parish Councillor and member of our It’s Your Neighbourhood team, judged the competition. We walked around Fairfield to view and photograph the entries on 12 July.

Penny said:

“It was (and still is!) such a delight to walk through Fairfield and enjoy the beautiful displays of  flowers in baskets and containers. But it was an amazingly difficult task to choose a winner. Every  basket and container showed a huge amount of care, commitment and skill.  As well as the individual entries it was especially pleasing to see the joint entries demonstrating community involvement and team work.”  

The judging criteria included colour choices – contrasting, complementing and matching colours, wildlife friendliness – bees buzzing around enjoying the flowers, presentation, appropriate positioning of displays, approach to design, plant selection, general health of displays – whether they were well established, vigorous and watered.

And the winners are:  

Under 16 Category  Dylan Evans, Russell Walk 

Community Category J. Collins and J. Bygraves, Livingstone Way 

Individual Category  R. Nichols, Charlotte Avenue

The following displays were also highly commended: 

A. Eatock and S. Knight, Door 3 Fairfield Hall 

G. Andrews and neighbours, 11–16 Middlemarch 

L. Davies, Charlotte Avenue 

Congratulations to all of them! As we walked around Fairfield judging the competition, it was amazing to see both the amazing entries and many beautiful front garden displays that hadn’t entered the competition. I would  encourage everyone to give it a go next year. 

Thank you to Thornes for sponsoring this year’s competition and to our local Tesco for hosting an  entry form post box for us. The prize winners will be presented with their prizes at our Apple Day on 16 September. See you there! 

If you are interested in Community Gardening or helping to maintain our spaces please contact me at gardening@fairfieldorganisations.org.uk.

Sara Chick