At the last 2016 Anglia in Bloom Awards Halesworth in Bloom were announced as the Winners of the Best Small Town Award for the second year BUT it was Frinton on Sea who had really won it .
The Mayor of Frinton looked as if he had swallowed acid. I said to Anne Fleming as we were waiting to see who would win - they had got it wrong because Frinton had pipped us over our Thoroughfare and our Biodiversity on the Millennium Green where their tree bird feeders in a garden was the true haven of wild life! So, rather than rush up like La La Land and collect another bowl we waited and eventually shamefacedly they announced that they had got it wrong. The Chair of the Judges apologised to us afterwards and said it was a close run thing. We were never told what had happened but I like to think that really we should have won and that someone also thought the same!!!! Next time it must be for real.
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The wow factor, Bright annual colours, wild flower corridors, tableaux, fun! so lets join them - have you any ideas? Where? What? How?
![]() Jane Kircher, our local heroine, died today after a long courageous fight against cancer. She formed the Grandparents and Parents Play Association (GAPPA) in September 2014 with an ambition to bring better and more accessible play equipment to Halesworth Town Park. Months of fundraising followed, and Jane with her GAPPA team secured enough to fund the new equipment in its entirety, through donations and grants provided by Halesworth Town Council, Co-op community Fund, One Foundation and Flagship in addition to a number of local businesses. The new equipment, which includes a wheelchair-accessible roundabout, a basket swing and two units comprising slides and climbing equipment, cost over £42,000. Luckily Jane, despite months of intensive treatment, was able to see her dream realised. The play area is now rightly called The Jane Kircher Play Park in acknowledgement of Jane's sterling work with her GAPPA group. All is not finished yet and a new Trim Trail will soon be in place (a series of low level planks, climbing net, stepping stones etc) within the existing play area, on the right hand side around the play roundabout. We hope too, that there will be a Granny Seat in Jane's memory with a scented rose of remembrance near it. Miss Willmott's ghost coming to haunt the Memorial Gardens soon alongside more Hooker plants.23/2/2017 Who was Miss Willmott and where did she live? Ellen's first book, Warley Garden in Spring and Summer, appeared in 1909, with still more wonders revealed: imagine a walled garden with paved paths winding through drifts of lilies, primula, delphiniums and verbascum spires, the pavings nestling in carpets of pinks and saxifrages, and hundreds of rare alpine flowers. The rocky valley of miniature ravines that Backhouse and his sons had built now flowered in a crazy-geographer's world - alpines side by side with plants from New Zealand, those of the Andes sheltering others from Greenland, Kashmir next to California, the Cordilleras and the heights of Pamir. Everything was immaculately labelled and, though hectic geographically, the arrangements allowed just those comparisons that horticulturists and botanists loved to experience. But Ellen's latest and strongest passion was a very English one, for roses - the nurseryman Correvon judged her collection, needless to say, one of the best in Britain, and she grew them at La Boccanegra as well. But trajedy struck Ellen Wilmott lost all her money and with it the wonderful garden.
Warley Place and her belongings that remained were put up for auction; after another war the buildings were gutted, and though the park and gardens remained in private ownership, they were leased to Essex Naturalists' Trust as a nature reserve, surely the final ignominy for a garden. Nature has resumed control, with a wilderness of obtuseness and poignancy that it is hard to evaluate: It is now a triple SI - a site of special scientific interest - but not, I imagine, for Miss Willmott's ghosts. The waves of blue and gold, of crocuses, scilla, aconites and narcissi still sweep back each spring, many of her fine trees must survive in the anonymity of the tangled woodland, and the rocky ravine of millstone grit that Backhouse built for her first Warley enterprise still sparkles with water and the vivid emeralds of ferns and lichens. For the rest, I can best ask you to imagine Kew Gardens, the day after the end of the world. Taken from an article in the Independent by Jane Brown ![]() Storm Doris continues to bring strong and damaging winds as we head through the rest of the day. The Met Office have issued an AMBER 'Be prepared' warning as we see gusts of 50-60mph and possible even 70mph.There will be a mixture of sunshine and blustery showers with strong and gusty winds. Maximum temperature 11 Here is a lovely tree in our Town Park but why do trees usually weather serious storms? Our Trees have roots that help anchor them but far more strength is given by their cylindrical trunks and branches which contain rings of strong fibres that are flexible. Also storms are usually at times when many have shed their leaves
Surprisingly Trees need winds to survive.When plants and trees grow in the wild, the wind constantly keeps them moving. This causes a stress in the wooden load bearing structure of the tree. So, to compensate, the tree manages to grow something called the reaction wood (or stress wood). This stress wood usually has a different structure (in terms of cellulose or lignin content and more) and is able to position the tree where it’d get the best light, or other optimum resources. This is the reason why trees are able to contort towards best light and still survive loads in even awkward shapes. A contorted building like that would easily fall. The tree is able to grow in a more solid manner – thanks to the reaction wood. f there’s no wind, the trees end up being much weaker and aren’t able to survive for long. This happens in homes too. Plants grown indoors, without any kind of wind hitting them on a regular basis tend to become weak. So, before they are planted outside in the wild conditions, their structure has to be strengthened by causing stress or hardening off. So wind is what makes a tree strong enough to sustain the wear and tear that it will face later in life. awesci 4 This week will be paying special attention to the skate park and are aiming to remove the graffiti from this town asset. Please wear appropriate clothing (sturdy shoes and gloves). Cleaning materials will be provided, but you are welcome to bring your own. Pickers and bin bags will also be provided for our usual litter pick around the park. Meet at the flagpole at the park entrance at 9am. Hope to see you there!
![]() Dear Friends I have just participated in a research project by the Royal Horticultural Society and the University of Sheffield on the influence of front gardens on health and well-being. The researchers are looking for non-gardeners to answer the same short questionnaire and I was asked to pass on the link to someone similar to me so I thought of you. The questionnaire is on the RHS websitre and it took me less than 15 minutes to complete. If you have any questions, you can contact the lead researcher Lauriane Chalmin-Pui directly at lschalmin-pui1@sheffield.ac.uk.
This how Anne get her plants and by the end of June - Late October they are a mass of flowers |
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