Horticultural Achievement

Heritage Formal Bedding

Although the trend is moving away from Formal Bedding as councils reduce spending on horticulture, FIB continues to plant Grant Park with heritage designs because these are highly valued by residents and visitors, many of whom look forward to making return visits to admire displays.

Autumn and Winter

• Emptying of annual bedding by school students, committee members and volunteers at several locations throughout the town
• Planting of bulbs and spring bedding
• Collecting leaves from park areas for composting at Council Recycling site
• Discussing summer bedding, permanent planting and summer colour schemes
• Organising planting of purple crocus corms with Rotary Club of Forres, Anderson’s Primary School, Dallas Primary and Forres in Bloom as part of the eradication of polio initiative
• Planting AJ Engineering bed
• Friends of Guiding visited site to plant Spring Bulbs
• Working with Forres Community Centre to plant a tree to celebrate 50th Anniversary

Spring

• Continuing to introduce more sustainable planting in Grant Park
• Planting a mix of perennials, summer bulbs and annuals to attract bees
• Planting raised beds on High Street by Anderson’s Primary School.
• Starting off Dahlias, Fuchsias, Begonias , Geraniums and Eucomis in greenhouses
• Planting ‘bought in’ plugs in greenhouses
• Watering and maintenance of spring barrels and beds.
• Planting seed and preparing for summer planting by Wee FIBbees and adult volunteers
• Convert raised bed to trial ‘no dig’ process

Summer

• Saving Spring bulbs from containers and planters throughout town
• Planting of barrels and beds throughout the town.
• Placing window boxes and hanging baskets in position
• Selling plants at coffee morning to enhance floral displays in private gardens.
• Meeting weekly with WEE FIBbees every Tuesday evening in term time and mornings in holidays
• Watering baskets, beds, boxes, tubs and sculptures in rotation as required
• Continuing routine maintenance tasks: weeding, dead-heading and feeding.
• Taking care to ensure that our planters enhance the impressive architecture of our handsome buildings
• Maintaining our reputation for summer floral sculptures in Grant Park
• Planting beds for biodiversity with Wee FIBbees
• Choosing and ordering Spring bulbs
• Planting sloping bed to commemorate the 60^th Anniversary of RHS
• Planting butterfly bed to commemorate 100^th Anniversary of Grant Park
• Planting raised bed for AJ engineering
• One bed at the Royal British Legion garden has been designed and planted by Forres Academy Additional Support Needs Base. They chose to plant vegetables and fruit for cooking lessons.