The Railings Project

 We have entered some of the OTRA Gardens into the RHS' It's Your Neighbourhood scheme for several years now, and each year the judges comment that it's not just the horticulture, community and sustainability of the garden that matters, but also the setting. They commented that the railings were in need of a coat of paint.

Having been tending the garden at Station Approach for 10 years now, I thought it was time to paint the railings, something way out of my comfort zone, where to start? Holman Paints in Signal Way trading estate were a great help, they advised rubbing excess, loose rust off with a wire brush, which we did in week 1:

Week 2 would have been painting with primer, but it was raining, so we had to give up ideas of painting that week and went to Mabel's for cups of tea. The following week it wasn't actually raining, but very windy, and looked as though it was about to rain, we got about half the railings painted before it did start to rain.

We completed the undercoat after another session, which was week 3 of working on the railings

This photo below shows how rusted the railings were

The fourth week of railings painting was the best really as we added the black top coat. The effect is stunning, even though I say so myself. It was finished in one session because Angela and I started painting in the morning and came back after lunch and didn't stop until the job was finished.

Below the painting group who are absolute stars. They have done a fantastic job.

I'm really pleased with the appearance of the garden, it looks fantastic. Richard James has offered us a donation for buying more plants which is wonderful. Apologies for duplicate photos. It used to be possible to delete extra photos, but that facility has gone!!