Milford Community Greenspace – July update

Over the past four years a group of dedicated volunteers have transformed 3 extremely overgrown allotments above the former Holy Trinity Church on Hopping Hill into The Milford Community Greenspace, a wonderful place full of facilities for children to play and learn and for the wider community to use. For more details on the work that has been done in the past, the facilities created and the school groups and others that use it, see our web page here.

Throughout the life of the project regular updates of our progress have been published and this is the latest. Since our last report in November we have worked hard to increase all year round colour to make the site even more attractive, by planting many more perennial flowers in existing beds and through the creation of new ones (beds on either side of the entrance, new shade garden and fern/stumpery, tyre planters). We have also added a large IBC water collection facility, laid a new gravel path, created a new raspberry bed, had a very successful Christmas Fuddle event on the site, re-ran our successful Easter egg hunt round the village and installed two new impressive “Greenspace” signs at the entrance. Forest Schools continue to be run on the site and the regular Monday volunteers continue to diligently do their planting, harvesting, chicken care, weeding, composting, laying of chip bark paths and tidying to keep the Greenspace shipshape and welcoming for the users.

First the programme to increase all round colour through planting perennial flowers in existing borders and creating new ones. The raised bed on your left as you enter had rotted so was rebuilt with new wood. It now has spring bulbs and hollyhocks in it.

On the left, the bamboo bed created as part of the Peace Garden last year was planted up with drought tolerant succulents bought from Hudsons and from our own gardens.

Multiple plantings and selective weeding to leave colourful wildflowers has improved the bed to the left of The Shed of Inspiration.

Our main project over the early spring though was the creation of a Shade Garden, stumpery and Fern Garden by the storytelling area. The area was weeded, dug over and plants bought from Hudsons, supplemented by ferns from our own gardens. The stepping stone path around the bottom of these gardens was also moved slightly. A wooden mushroom sculpture carved by Howard Morris was added to the Shade Garden. It should be noted that this very shady area usually grows very little, but by selective planting we have brought it to life.

We have retrieved tyres from the site as we cleared it and supplemented them with others, then painted them pink. These have been stacked into piles of 3, filled with soil and this year we’ve planted them up, as in the example below. Various recycled pots were also converted into a Flower Pot Person!

The wildflower garden, established last year, was beautiful for most of May and June this year, with geums, ox-eye daisies, corn cockles, purple toadflax, foxgloves and buttercups being especially striking. Planting up the plot with perennial wildflower plants last year, which have now established themselves, then judicious weeding seems to be the key to its success.

Like last year, painted lady butterflies were bought as chrysalises and nurtured indoors, then released onto the wildflower garden by the children in July.

Overall we’ve been very pleased how this planting programme has improved the overall appearance of the site, as shown in the photos below.

Meanwhile we have continued our programme of site improvements and maintenance over the last 7 months. Several tonnes of gravel collected from a donor on Well Lane was carried up to the site in December and a new gravel path created to the composting toilet.

More gravel was donated from Peter Harrison off Shaw Lane, and this used to complete the gravel path up to the Pallet Wall.  The Pallet Wall has been painted bright colours.

The same donor also gave us some large tree trunks which have been used to edge the gravel path and better delineate the fruit tree area and raspberry bed.

Most of the ivy was removed from the back wall and much of it was burnt.

The picnic bench was repainted blue.

The Charlotte potatoes (maincrop) were planted. There is only half the normal amount this year. Onion sets were planted in the other half of one of the raised beds by the Forest School children.

Last time we described how we’d potted over 200 strawberry runners ready for sale. We have so far sold £45 worth. We had gathered many raspberry canes from around the site as we cleared it and put them in a bed, but over the years, despite moving them to a more sunny spot and feeding them copiously, they have failed to fruit. So in November they were dug out 40 new summer and autumn canes planted by the Milford Forest School children. 90% of the raspberry canes have taken root and look healthy and the summer canes bore fruit.

The fruit trees planted at the back of the Greenspace in December 2020 are doing very well this year – they are all laden with fruit. The area round the fruit trees was weeded several times.

The mud kitchen table was completely dismantled and moved and levelled.

The pond was relined with matting and plastic and restocked with tadpoles. The kingcups and flag iris were lovely.

A much larger water collection station has been created. A new IBC was purchased, brought up onto the Greenspace, the IBC site levelled, and then the IBC plumbed into the Shed of Inspiration roof.

The wigwam had to be moved to make way for the water collection station and was was retied at the top.

Gripper tape was attached to the ladder steps over the wall. A first aid kit has been purchased for the site and a holder and hand sanitizer unit has been fixed on the inside of the toilet.

We finally completed the weed matting/chipped bark programme which has been going on for 3 years for all designated paths and the Tinker Zone. Two loads of chipped bark (the first three times the normal size) donated free by Jonathan Beard (JB Landscapes) were bagged and carried up to the site. All paths and play areas were then covered in chipped bark, which has lasted all winter, spring and summer. The site is also considerably more weed free.

The Greenspace has been part of the judging route for East Midlands in Bloom for 3 years now but this year is also on the Britain in Bloom (BIB) judging route. We have thought we needed a proper sign for some time, but the imminent BIB judging has spurred us on to do something about it. In July Ben Rogers has created a very smart wooden sign for the front and then a more crafted sign from different materials facing inwards into the Peace Garden, from a design by Suzie Goodburn. This has turned out to be a striking addition to the Greenspace and we are are very pleased with it.

We have continued to run community events on the site. After last years success another Christmas Fuddle was organised and held on The Greenspace and went down well (more detailed report here).

The Christmas Star, which has been put up in various sites throughout the village, came to the Greenspace this year.

The Easter egg trail was re-run after last years’ success, with even more houses in the village taking part.

We will be holding a community barbecue on the site 2-4pm on Sunday 11th August – all welcome!

Finally we entered Belper Town Council’s Beautiful Belper, Nature-Friendly and Peat-Free Gardening Awards in the Community Garden category and were judged on 7th July. On the 23rd July it was announced that we were the category winners!