Forum Topic

Beautiful front gardens competition

The Putney Society are holding a front garden competition  -closing date  30th May. Seems a great idea to recognise and celebrate those pockets of beauty. I walk by several of these and they have inspired me to up my game with a few geraniums on the doorstep (although sadly they are not an oasis of beauty at the moment). I had a leaflet through the door, but if you didn’t or tossed it in the recycling, have a look on the Putney Society website. http://www.putneysociety.org.uk/events/front-garden-competition-entries-by-may-30th-2019.html. 

Ruth Pates ● 2748d22 Comments

Ruth, thanks for the mention!Yes the Putney Soc is running a front gardens competition and I did a bit of leafleting to help it along. We have a band of volunteers out tWe have had a few entrants already and hope for many more. This is our first go at this and we want to focus on SW15 1 and SW15 2 postcodes.  It would be great if this does inspire a few people to work on their front gardens. Too many have been concreted over and some people have very little space so we will have a prize for the best flower boxes too.

Jonathan Callaway ● 2748d

Ruth, blimey, you managed to embed a working link in your post. How did you do that?I read the leaflet quickly and got the impression it was just window boxes and planters. Does the competition include all front gardens?Nick

Nicholas Evans ● 2748d

Thanks to Judith Chegwidden for this swift explanation on the garden competition:Dear NickI saw your post on the Putney SW15 forum.The competition has two categories - one for "planted up" front gardens and one for pots and containers.Regards,Judith

Nicholas Evans ● 2748d

This is a brilliant idea.Transition Town Wandsworth appears to mostly be concerned with gardening now.https://ttwandsworth.wordpress.com/community-garden/

Philippa Bond ● 2747d

Wow:  Yes it makes a lot of difference if you can do that. I was expecting to copy and paste as per for ever...

Philippa Bond ● 2746d

Nick, when you try to reply to a post, you'll see a black bar along the top of the page. Click on the + sign (third item from the left) and in the drop-down menu that then appears, the first one is for a link; click on that and a window appears for you to add your URL (the second one is to add an image).
Definitely an improvement, and I don't find it slow as Jonathan Callaway found, though that's on a computer — it's hopeless on a smartphone. And you can vary the text and all sorts of useful things, making it bold or italic or whatever, change the font (eg, to Arial) or a different colour.

Richard Carter ● 2746d

Here's Philippa's link made active: https://ttwandsworth.wordpress.com/community-garden/

Richard Carter ● 2746d

Correction Richard. I uploaded Harvey's photo and used italic text so those  features do work on a smartphone. I use an iPhone 6 Plus which is quite an old version now but all the functions in the toolbar work perfectly well on it.

Sue Hammond ● 2746d

P.S. Many thanks Barry. xx

Sue Hammond ● 2746d

Hope lots of people sign up for it! There are some lovely front gardens and window boxes, so the more people do, the better for our wildlife!

Victoria Diamond ● 2744d

Thank you, Vicky, for getting this thread back on track (and sorry for wandering off it). Anyway, as a reminder, here's a link to details of the competition: just click on it.
http://www.putneysociety.org.uk/events/front-garden-competition-entries-by-may-30th-2019.html.

Richard Carter ● 2744d

https://www.rhs.org.uk/science/gardening-in-a-changing-world/front-garden-researchSo the more initiatives like the Putney front garden competition the better.One day there may be a garden next to you and the next day it may be concreted over.  Please offer to help a neighbour if it looks as though they may be struggling.

Philippa Bond ● 2742d

Thanks Richard.  We have to help people keep gardening.We are going to need to be more careful about the state of the soil in our gardens.  Sudden cloudbursts causing flash flooding will be made worse if we concrete over gardens.  Keeping them green doesn't have to be hard work.

Philippa Bond ● 2742d

The little I understand, having no front garden, is that the law now says you cannot concrete over unless you use that soakaway sort of criss cross concreting?  Think that's correct?

Bunny Payne ● 2742d

It looks so ugly when people have their front gardens concreted over just to plonk a vehicle on it. Imagine looking out of your front room window and seeing a great big lump of metal instead of some lovely flowers. Bloody awful sight. I really wish the Council would stop allowing this to be done.

Sue Hammond ● 2741d

If we can encourage more people to garden then we will have a better chance of keeping our gardens.There are lots of resources here as well as competitions and school stories:https://schoolgardening.rhs.org.uk/school-gardening-awards

Philippa Bond ● 2741d

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_drainage_system(SuDS)  I think this is what you mean.  All contractors should know about this and should be telling you if you don't know and haven't found out about it.  You can't expect for instance to just re-concrete because there was concrete there before.Rain Gardens, green roofs and more...There is info in the Mayor of London's Draft Plan too.https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/lsdap_final.pdf

Philippa Bond ● 2740d

https://www.housebeautiful.com/uk/garden/a27547167/chelsea-flower-shows-monty-don-joe-swift-garden-debate/Now don't forget to do your own!

Philippa Bond ● 2730d

Hope you have lots of beautiful front gardens - and more next year.  Chelsea is inspirational!  So keep planning.

Philippa Bond ● 2726d

my go to garden center is just off the Tolworth roundabout www.courtfarm.uk.com Further along the A3 is another one next to Chessington World of Adventure which is apparently top notch. having said that I have recently bought some very good bedding plants and lillies from sainsburys

Adam Tripp ● 2725d

Putney Hardware on URR has nice plants - highly recommend and can support a local business

Ruth Pates ● 2725d

Closing date is drawing near: only 3 days to go to get your entries in!

Richard Carter ● 2725d