You may have noticed that the planting boxes and troughs are now full of summer plants and that this year they look slightly different.
Bridport & District Gardening Club, Groves Nurseries and Bridport Town Council have teamed up to replace the usual summer bedding plants with polinator-friendly perennials. Around 20 flower boxes around Bridport town centre have been turned into ‘pollinating patches’ to help with the pollinating insect population.
Whilst these flower boxes are usually full of flowers for the summer, the perennials are better pollinators than most of the usual occupants. They have single flowers, a long flowering period, are low maintenance and are adaptable. It will take a few weeks for the boxes to fill out but they are expected to be a beautiful addition to the town once they have.
Becky Groves from Groves Nurseries said “The Bridport Gardening Club are very kindly looking after the plants throughout the year. Without the club looking after them it wouldn’t happen. It is a real community project.”
The plants used include geranium ‘Rozanne’; geranium sanguineum; verbena bonariensis ‘Lolipop’; geom ‘Totally Tangerine’; nepeta and stachys lantana.
Extract from a Bridport News article by Cristiano Magaglo.
The photographs below show B&DGC members Monique, Margaret, Delia, Sibyl and Tim as they got on with phase 2 of replanting the town planters with pollinator friendly perennials. Photographs also include Paul and George from the BTC team.
