A GLOBAL business has supported a community initiative in its ambition to create a Mediterranean-style garden in a Tamar Valley village.
Blooming marvellous gardening group Calstock in Bloom has been busy getting the village’s green spaces ready for this year’s Britain in Bloom judging which is taking place today (July 27).
The group has been full-steam ahead after last year’s success of Calstock winning the Vic Verrier Trophy — for the Best New Entry and a Gold Award in the village pennant.
One of their big plans this year was to create a Mediterranean-style bed in the village car park, an ambition which has now been achieved thanks to support from a global business.
The group approached Hanson Aggregates, the operator of Hingston Down Quarry earlier in the year for support and the business kindly offered to provide the group, free of charge, all of the raw products they needed to build a dry stone wall, a footpath to provide access to the whole bed, and gravel to improve the soil’s drainage.
Last week, the Calstock in Bloom team invited Josh Salter, production supervisor at Hingston Down Quarry to the village to see how the team have put Hanson’s donations to good use.
Seven months of hard work from the team and members of the community has gone into creating the beautiful garden.
The new Mediterranean-style bed, the largest bed in the village, has been planted with a variety of drought-resistant plants and pollinators and there is now a walkway through the bed.
A bug hotel has also been installed that the local children at the schools helped to make. The Bloom group held a competition with the primary and pre-school children to name the bug hotel, with the name ‘Bugingham Palace’ being chosen.
Colin Bates, chair of Calstock in Bloom said: “This bed has been our focal point this year in terms of effort and expenditure.
“Hanson have provided us with the raw materials the hardscaping and their donation has saved us several hundred pounds.
“Then we’ve had people donate some plants and we tried to see if there was anything to recover within here which we have managed to do. We’ve also had plants donated by Cotehele from a bed they were clearing out which matched very well with our brief to create it in a Mediterranean style way so that it’s drought-tolerant which is the way we want to go. It’s support like this that makes it all possible.”
Josh was impressed by the garden and the team’s efforts and wished them good luck in the judging.
Josh said: “Hanson as a company and also Hingston Down we’re trying to really emphasise a community spirit mindset and do anything we can to assist with something that benefits the community, whether that is donating materials or manpower. We want to give something back to the community and try to help out when we can.
“As Hingston Down Quarry we want to build a stronger relationship between us and the local community and the residents and give back something that the community can benefit from.”