Planting Grants 2009

29 Community groups around the borough are flexing their green fingers in preparation for sprucing up their local area - all thanks to our Dig It planting grant scheme.

We will add some before and after photographs to this page when they are available so that you can see the amazing difference tenants have made with their hard work.

Heywood

• Residents at Isherwood Close are continuing their work to enhance their communal garden. This year they will be involving more residents and adding fruit trees and vegetables to harvest and share with residents.
• Springfield Close residents are adding hanging baskets and brightening up their planters.  A new greenhouse will enable a wheelchair bound resident to have a greater involvement in the gardening.
• Youngsters living in Heywood are working to improve several areas with the Community Space Challenge Team.

Middleton

• Furness Road Wildlife Garden Project.
• Residents on Baytree Lane are continuing to make their communal area a bright and colourful oasis.
• Residents at Norman Weall Court are smartening up their garden, with a little help from pupils at Newlands School.

• Tonge Court residents are planting up two empty wooden containers at the scheme and adding hanging baskets to the entrance area.

• Threlkeld Court residents are putting up new handing baskets and adding large pots at the front of the scheme to make it look more inviting.

North

• Mountside View residents are replanting a large planter at the scheme to make the entrance area more welcoming.
• Freehold Community Group are offering guidance, support (and plants of course!) to tenants to help them improve the look of the estate. They will be encouraging involvement with a gardening competition and teaching children healthy eating habits with their home grown vegetables.
• Moss Row are putting up hanging baskets and enhancing the flower beds at the front of the scheme. With support from Ann Metcalfe, their local Councillor, they were able to attract additional funding to fence and flag an unused area at the scheme and create a base for the greenhouse they bought with their Dig It grant.  All the residents will be encouraged to use the greenhouse and help plan the planting scheme for next year.

• Workers from REDS (Rochdale Employment Development Service) are improving the communal garden at Yew Court and encouraging residents to get involved in the maintenance of the garden by hosting a get-to-know-you garden party.

• Low Bank residents are using climbing plants to cover fencing and their new archway and brightening up their flower beds with some annual flowers.
• Smallbridge Tenants and Residents Association are involving the local community in planting annual flowers (and later in the year some spring flowering bulbs) to 2 large planters on Stevenson Square.
• Residents at Hamer Cottage are re-landscaping the rear of their premises to create a rockery and attractive garden area out of what is now an untidy litter trap made up of unsightly bushes.
• Local children and their families who use the Meadowfields Community Centre at Belfield will be working together to improve the garden area at the centre.  This project aims to encourage care and responsibility for their local environment and to build strong relationships with each other.

Pennines

• Thistleyfield residents are planting bulbs around the bases of existing trees and will be adding flower tubs to the car park entrance and patio area and providing all the residents with hanging baskets.         
• Residents at Ryefields are creating raised beds around existing trees and adding planters and hanging baskets to their currently rather bland patio area. This will encourage more residents to use the garden for social area.

• Friends of Smithybridge Library are making the front of the building more attractice with some summer flowering plant.

• Green Meadow Children's Group are working with young people on the estate to create a sensory garden at the community base.

• Bentgate TRA will be teaching youngsters all about growing vegetables through the kind donation of an allotment plot.
• PEEPS (Parents Encouraging and Empowering Parents) are planting up the front of Moorhouse Children's Centre and School.

South

• Arnold Bagnall Court and growing fruit trees and filling hanging baskets with flowers, tomatoes and strawberries.

• Ashfield House residents are creating a vegetable garden and brightening up the flower beds near the front

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• Residents at Derrick Walker Court are restocking their hanging baskets, tubs, window boxes and garden borders with annuals, perennials and shrubs.

• TRAK (Tenants and Residents Around Kirkholt) are running a sunflower competition for children on the estate.
• The vicar at St Thomas' Church on Kirkholt is involving local residents in improving the look of the large paved area around the church entrance with large planters.

• Chesham Youth Section are running a hands-on project for children on the estate with activities to make the community base look nice and give ownership to the young people.   They are planting hanging baskets, wall planters and tubs and planting bulbs in flower beds at the base.
• K-Play are running workshops for children to make mosaic planters and small decorated pots.  The children will then visit Arnold Bagnall Court to present the planters to residents.
• Sandbrook Children's Centre Parent Forum are improving the balconies above The Strand by planting a variety of colourful sensory plants and a range of fruit and vegetables. They will use the space for picnics and will also be using the produce to run cookers demonstrations.

"Dig It" grants are supported by Gordon Rigg Garden Centre (Rochdale), All in One Garden and Leisure (Middleton) and Rochdale Council's Environmental Management department incorporating Bowlee Garden Centre.

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