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Triumph and Tragedy: West Richmond Street

Hello everyone,

Just a wee update on the site at West Richmond Street. We did lots of weeding, seeding and bulbing and things had been sprouting up left, right and centre! For many years this had been a badly neglected rose garden, full of weeds and a few struggling overgrown untended rose bushes.

Unfortunately some Council gardeners turned up with a whole heap of volunteer schoolkids and sadly they blitzed a lot of the area before we realised what was happening! It was a great shame and a missed opportunity to really teach these youngsters about gardening. We managed to save part of the area we'd planted but sadly rather than a mass of flowers over most of the site, only a fraction remains. We managed to salvage this bit after negotiating with the gardeners. They admitted themselves the area would be covered in weeds within a few weeks and they had no plans to come back to the site or do any new planting. What a waste of so much potential beauty! They also didn't do a very good job of weeding and left the roots of the most pernicious weeds!! However we have been delighted with the mass of flowers that has sprung up and each day there is something new to delight in.

Lots of bees have been buzzing around the flowers which is lovely to see.

The broad bean seeds that Thea planted have grown very well and are looking extremely healthy. Unfortunately the red onions Andrea planted fell pray to the Council gardeners but a couple have survived.

Lots of lovely ladybirds (my most fave wee beastie!) have been visiting the site and keeping the greenfly off the sun flowers we planted against the wall. These should be coming into flower very soon and I'll post some more pictures when they do.














We have had lots of compliments from local residents and people on the way to work. Many folk have stopped to thank us for the work we've done and to say how much it cheers them up on their way to work. We often see folk stopping to admire the flowers. A BIG THANK YOU to everyone who has helped work on this site. There's still lots to be done and I'll set some potential dates/times in August for doing some more work.

Rock Trust Volunteers - Wed 8th July 2009

Hello everyone!

Well another very successful day was held at Porty Town Hall this afternoon. A whole heap of volunteers came along from the Rock Trust along with a few workers from the Trust.

In the photo you can see a couple of the workers from the Rock Trust, Mark and Sarah along with some of their volunteers. All the Rock Trust volunteers beavered away all day doing a lot of clearing at the site.

One of the workers from the Rock Trust Mark got rather a fright when he disturbed a wasps nest! However apart from a few stings he was fine. Though I can't really blame him for the fact that he did run like a girl! One of the volunteers did brave the area later to do some clearing.

Everyone did a fab job of digging up masses of tree roots and the site looks a lot clearer now. Another one of the volunteers did lots of clearance work round the corner of the site. I think we can now finally see the light at the end of the tunnel! They all seemed to enjoy their time at Porty and are keen to come back in a couple of months to do some more work and see how things are progressing. A very big THANK YOU to everyone who came from the Rock Trust. They all worked extremely hard all day and we really appreciate their help.