OTRA Community Gardens Update

Although we haven't been able to meet as community gardeners for over 8 weeks now since lockdown began on 23 March, the gardens are looking surprisingly good. Determined to get 2020 off to a flying start, we met during January and February to get preparations underway for a fabulous Britain in Bloom entry this year which I think put us in a good position to leave the gardens alone. We have tried to plant lots of perennials, so we have a succession of flowers, and plants have done well without watering. It isn't possible to water plants in the gardens, and this year we have once again reached near drought conditions, I haven't been able to plant cuttings intended for the gardens yet.

Let's have a look at the gardens, starting with the Swindon Museum and Art Gallery gardens:

In these beds, Heucheras have really excelled, along with sea pinks, purple sage and sedums as you can see from these 2 photos of the same bit of bed.

 On the other side of the pathway, there are more fantastic Heucheras

 Their flowers are just fabulous

 below the recently planted Geums are also doing really well

 and just look at the blue Penstemon donated by a local resident, and the yellow in the photo below is from a Welsh poppy

 Moving onto the Mr Cod bed, this is suffering from being in a sun trap, but still just about holding up, with many more plants to come:

 The Euphorbia probably needs cutting back now, but is looking good from a distance

 Walking by the bed opposite Earle's newsagents last night, there were some lovely surprises with Aquilegias not seen before and various other delights:

 like the snapdragon above

 Deplphiniums and a lovely poppy

 below a general view of the garden with a Salvia in the foreground

 here's the garden behind the Co-op bus stop with a foxglove and some Sweet Williams flowering, the perennial sunflower is making a bid to take over the bed and needs removing

And finally onto the bed by the Marriott where the soil is very sandy, and now a bit like a sand dune:

 there are some great pansies there though, and

 these Alliums

and more pansies. You can see how dry the soil is.
I can't wait to be able to garden together again, hopefully soon. In the meantime they're looking good.