The clocks went forward last night and I woke bright and early – course I did – to what can only be described as a spring morning. A week ago a troop of hardy volunteers gathered to start tackling the extensive areas in Gorse Hill that can – and will – be planted. Continue reading →

Where has 2014 gone, as we whizz towards Spring it has been lovely to walk around Gorse Hill and see the fruits of our labour. As I cast my mind back to a very cold and wet November day and a gang of us get covered in mud planting thousands of bulbs it’s great to see those bulbs bursting through.

I can see irises, daffodils and tulips bursting through at the foot of trees on South Lonsdale St, I can see the beginnings of Sweet Peas appearing on Milton Rd and some daffodils appearing along Chester Rd – even some on the sad looking central island near the junction with Talbot Rd. We’ve made a start and we’ll do more with our planting day at the end of March (check out our Spring Planting Day post). Continue reading →

The last day of outdoor planting for the Gorgeous Gorse Hill gang started with hail; as the planned orchard planting day was a month further into winter and came two days after a huge storm I wasn’t feeling totally optimistic. But I was wrong. There it was the sun, no frozen ground – perfect tree planting weather.

The development of the community orchard has evolved through two Gorse Hill community projects – Gorgeous Gorse Hill and Project Buzz. Continue reading →

Well it’s December and the dark days and cold weather are no reason for to stop the onward march of gorgeousness in Gorse Hill. 

We’ve had some ups and downs since the last post. On the downside we were unsuccessful with one of our significant funding bids. This was funding towards the Street Art work on the shutters; it’s disappointing as this is a significant part of the project however it’s understandable with funding limited for community projects and charities you can understand funding decisions when you have to decide between projects that feed people and keep them well against a project that was to pretty up its local area. But that won’t put us off, we are waiting on the outcome of another funding application and we have found other sources of funding that we’re be exploring over the Festive period. Continue reading →

Hail. No one really likes hail. But hail is what we got when we began planting over 1000 bulbs last Sunday. A dedicated band of us braved the elements to plant a wide variety of spring bulbs around Gorse Hill. It’s funny although the weather was ghastly (and it was) everyone seemed very cheery and for me the thought of seeing tulips, daffodils, crocuses and irises poking through next spring was a good motivator.

Watch out for them, they’ve been put around the bases of trees on streets, along parts of Chester Rd (around bushes and trees) and at the top of Talbot Rd. Continue reading →

Southwark Greener, Cleaner, Safer Project with decorated Openreach boxes

A big part of the Gorgeous Gorse Hill project is our plan to brighten up shop shutters and telephone exchange boxes with ‘street art’. Some people have expressed concerns about how it will look – will they like it? Will it get vandalised? Will it just look like graffiti? Continue reading →

Wow – well, it feels like a long time ago that I stood up in front of my fellow Traffordians to ask for their support for Gorgeous Gorse Hill.

It was quite a weekend when we won that funding, as the next day I went on to do 26 miles of the Manchester Bike Ride!

The project has really gained momentum since then, with growing interest from local residents and businesses. I feel very excited about it and think it has the opportunity to do a lot of good for Gorse Hill. If I’m honest I feel really passionate about it; every time a person joins the Facebook group or follows us on Twitter, I get a little thrill. Continue reading →