A bloomin’ marvellous effort

Great displays,like the galleon best

Wonderful blog. Thank you for sharing.

Glad you liked it! ??

I thought the displays this year showed a great deal of imagination! They were done by Huntingdon Town Council whereas the majority of the bedding around town is done by Huntingdonshire District Council.

HDC seem to have lost in the imagination dept. lately, as their displays are all as identical as it is possible to make them which has become very disappointing over the last few years. They used to have some very good displays with a good assortment of plants & the beds were often made up differently but no longer. ? As it must cost a great deal of money to raise & plant out the many 1,000s of plants they need each year I can only imagine that cost reductions have bitten into their budget & they have had to make some sacrifices.

Yes, I also like the Pericles Galleon display best, but the Deck Chair one is imaginative. Clever planting!

Interesting photos. Congratulations to the winners :)

they are deserving winners . its lovely when there is a civic pride.

It all look marvellous Balcony, they have done the townspeople proud, I like the Galleon best but the deckchair looks very good as well...

They also planted up a few small wooden boats around town but the closest one to where I live has now been emptied of its summer contents though the little boat continues there.

I took just one photo I think of another one in a part of town I rarely visit.

I will look amongst my photo & see if I can find one or two photos. I'd forgotten all about them till we went past one in the bus this afternoon. If I can find them I'll add them to this blog.

I've updated this blog to include the only 3 photos I had taken of this small boat (dingy?) that I forgot about when making up the blog.

The other photo I mentioned I can't find, I don't know where I may have stored it on my HDD. I'm normally very careful where I keep things as I make up folders with things, dates & places so I can easily find them in the future should I need them - particularly for use on forums like GoY. (I'm rather annoyed with myself for not being able to locate it!)

One thing that particularly struck me was the use of deep blue Lobelias to represent the water the boat is on! ?

They are lovely photos. The boat looks very pretty on the 'sea' of blue flowers. What are they ?

Some wonderful displays there thank you for sharing Balcony.

Civic pride at its best.

What a wonderful addition to our public spaces, well done.

Hywel, the blue flowers are Lobelias. As they have kept the boat in place I imagine they will replant the area around it with blue 'Forget-Me-nots' for the spring bedding display. When we went passed it on the bus this afternoon they still haven't planted anything in or around the little boat. When they do I will keep you informed of what they plant.

Thank you.

Again this morning, we passed the little boat but I forgot to look to see if they had done any planting around it. There are other flower beds in the area where they have put the yearly Pansies in so I don't think they are doing anything "imaginative" this winter.

Where the galleon 'Pericles' was they have replanted the bed with Pansies & Polyanthus. So we will have to wait till next year to see just what new & imaginative idea they come up with! LOL!

We have been passed this little rowing boat on several occasions sine they replanted it with the spring bedding but they don't seem to have put any Forget-me-nots around it as I expected. It seems to be bare earth from the bus.

They have not come up with any "imaginative" ideas for the spring bedding. But they have made some changes to some of the flowerbeds I often take photos off. They have reduced them in number & have made a raised square bed inside of them. They put in a square timber frame & filled it with soil before planting them up.

Even the flowerbed in the gardens of our block of flats has been changed - for the first time in the 16 years we have lived here! They have reduced the size of the bed by putting in a square timber frame & filling it with soil before planting it up. This has reduced the size of the bed by almost 2/3rds! But they have planted 100s of tulip bulbs - I was at home at the time & I was able to watch them planting up the bed - as well as some Wallflowers, in the very centre, & filling in the rest of the space with Polyanthus.

It's a shame about the displays but I don't think they have enough money to keep them the same size these days.

Everything is getting smaller though, including chocolate bars. I have also noticed bars of soap are smaller, and they make them a different shape in order to give you less for your money.

I quite agree with you, Hywel, & I thought the same, too.

About this small boat I've commented on several times at last I have some news! Last year, during the summer, they planted dark blue Lobelias around it to represent water. Last autumn, unbeknownst to me, they planted deep purple Crocuses around the boat & they looked fabulous the day I took some photos. So I've started to make up a new blog where I can show off the lovely display & so I can remember it for years to come! Unfortunately the display of Crocuses only lasted a couple of weeks. So a blog will be a great way to preserve the memory of them.

In the boat itself they have planted some very vibrant & showy yellow & red Tulips as well as lots of Primulas & some Wallflowers. But as the Wallflowers are not in flower just yet I will wait a week or two before I publish the new blog so as to be able to add some photos of them to it.