We are pleased with our new Full Frontal street sign – fabricated for us by Medway Council’s sign shop. Also acknowledging Tree Box for giving us the wall planter which is looking great this year with its red white and blue planting.
Street Sign
Unbelievably, and against all the usual rules, our horribly mistreated Dahlia Pooh plants – so called because they are so attractive to bees – that haven’t been lifted and carefully stored overwinter, but remained in tyres on the pavement, have decided that they love life and the first flower has shone out through the rain, as early as the first week of June. I wonder whether the black tyres have in fact provided a warm and safe haven over the winter, that has helped the plants not only survive, but start flowering early! All good news!
It would be lovely to hear about any other flowering successes from the groups.
Today I went out to All Hallows to meet the folks in the village there, who want to become part of the Full Frontal project and who have some problem areas to resolve around the ‘centre’ of the village in the area of the Village Shop.
They are now planning on engaging local people, including those younger members in the local Youth Group. Finding out what they would like to have, and getting them involved with the making and maintenance of a new and refreshed planted area
We do wish them all the very best with their project, that should make a real difference to the village.
This is the furthest out in the Medway , that Full Frontal has spread so far!
I was thrilled to see that all the talking is beginning to result in a new and blooming face for Rochester High Street! a number of businesses and residents have now planted up colourful containers, and together with the celebration bunting in the street, it is a very jolly looking place these days! The lamppost baskets are beginning to fill in…and there are still surprises to come buried within those baskets…keep your eyes peeled for what may emerge in the next month!
Having been shortlisted for an Award from the Open Spaces Society http://www.oss.org.uk/open-space-award along with three other sites in Britain, today we were visited by Edgar Powell and Tim Crowther, the judges. There were many questions to be answered about the project. We then went for a walkabout along Longley Road, Rochester Avenue, Clive Road, Clarence Avenue and part of Castle Avenue – there are some wonderful frontals coming along in all the roads – I don’t really have any idea what they thought about our efforts, but I could certainly see some amazing improvements and some wonderful frontals.
Open Spaces Society
We were recently asked to have a Full Frontal stand at the Cooperative Members Regional Conference in Croydon. Melisa and Fern attended – it was good to meet so many people and to get feedback – we were approached by a Councillor from the Croydon for help and ate far too much Fairtrade chocolate from the Coop Food stand next door!
FF at Co-op
Rochester Avenue’s branch of Full Frontal seems to be going well. We have about 18 houses signed up, and have noticed other houses also planting out, which is great news. Most of the FFRA houses have put a Full Frontal Growing Community sign in our window. I promise to when I find the sellotape!
Anyone wishing to join, please email our mailbox at FFRA@fullfrontal.org.uk
We had our first meeting at the What the DickInns Pub last week. It went very well, everyone brought along seedlings, and there were a load of plants donated by the Fund – so a huge thank you to Fern and her helpers for those.
Tonight, 22 May, a few of us met up at St Peter’s = Bill, Helen, Richard and Viv, with the PCSOs, Fern, Simon Harwood, and Nick Bowler. Simon brought litter pickers and bin bags, and we split up into groups and walked down the alleys on each side of Rochester Avenue picking up litter. Next time I think it would be a good thing to take a broom and dustpan, we spent a lot of time trying to pick up cigarette butts and tiny bits of paper which could be scooped up in a millisecond with a broom. Rochester Avenue is definitely encompassing the Full Frontal ideology and doing everything we can to improve our environment.
Thanks to Helen for organising the litter clear up, Fern for the plants and everyone for their enthusiasm and willingness to share. Maybe we can combine the next litter clear up with a trip to the DickInns or a few glasses of lambrusco in someone’s garden
Just wanted to add that this morning I have emailed our local councillors and trading standards to ask for their help in encouraging the supermarkets on Delce Road not to sell alcohol to under-age drinkers and to commit to keeping their shop fronts clean, particularly CostCutters, which constantly has rubbish outside.
I have also been on to the planning department about a potential new fast food joint on Delce Road, and will be emailing them to raise objects.
I know this isn’t strictly planting news, but less rubbish is better for the environment and is a big problem in the alleys behind Rochester Avenue and on Delce Road itself.
We have to thank the Community Payback Team for clearing and killing the weeds on the Bath Hard Lane derelict site under the railway bridge on Rochester High Street.
With the help of local residents, wildflower seeds have been sown on the site and it will now be kept clear of rubbish…we hope that the wildflowers, sown rather late in the season will manage to make a wonderful show over this summer. Big Thanks to all who were involved and have worked to make this happen.
There are a number of other secret sites around Rochester that have been sown with wildflower seeds…see if you can spot where they are growing!
Community Payback Team
With the help of residents and traders in Rochester High Street, last week saw the planting up and installation of the lamppost baskets in the High Street. These are now adorning a number of lampposts from Rochester Bridge, right through to Sun Pier. The planters have sustainable planting of Stipa tenuissima – Hair grass and Heucherella ‘Redstone Falls’. The planters will now be watered by the people who live and work around the lampposts, and will over the summer months reveal their ‘secret’ surprises…keep your eyes peeled.
Bob and Judy at City Books, 41 High Street very kindly made their garden available for the delivery and planting of the baskets for which we are very grateful and a number of businesses in the High Street have also put out their own planted containers including the Visitor Information Centre. The Blooming Rochester initiative is well on its way!
Full Frontal has had a feature in the Telegraph gardening section, where Fern Alder was asked about the project:
“It was a mad idea which came to me at about one in the morning,” says Fern Alder, the project’s founder. “I’d always had plants in the front of my house and thought it would be nice if the rest of the road did the same. A few of us got together and came up with the name, then we dropped fliers through the street asking if people wanted to be involved.
“Once we’d done our houses, we started to look at the communal areas. There was one corner which was particularly bad, where vans were pulling up and dumping whole households’ worth of rubbish. Now there isn’t room to dump anything and we’ve got 20 different sorts of buddleia from the National Collection there. People are less likely to dump rubbish on something which looks nice.”
Telegraph
