Culter In Bloom
PLANTING PRIDE IN THE COMMUNITY
Planting and planning are the two words which sum up what your 'Cutter in Bloom' team has been up to in the last few months
TUBS, BULBS, TREFOILS AND TREES
The planting has been in two phases: • Replanting the 30 plus containers dotted around the village which we now have in our custody. Tulips, polyanthus and wallflower will give Spring colour in these - you may even be able to see some of the colour already.
• Planting out the 120kg of daffodils and 3000 crocus donated to us by Aberdeen City Council - this was a pretty demanding task not aided by the wet autumn weather. The grass verges at the East end of the village and on Malcolm Road were the main areas to benefit - but watch out, in a month or two there could be a little unexpected patch of Spring brightness somewhere near you, courtesy of CIB....
We also advised the Guides on their imaginative plans to enhance the front of the church with a trefoil of purple crocuses and helped the lst Cutter Brownies to acquire and plant a rowan tree near the police station - but they did the work!
CITY GATEWAY
In our planning we have been working closely with Steven Mitchell the Aberdeen in Bloom Officer who has sought our advice on a possible major development of the grass embankment near Rob Roy into a floral "City Gateway" in 2005. Our village lies literally at the gateway to Aberdeen from Royal Deeside and deserves an entrance worthy of that status, so naturally we were all in favour, and had even been considering taking it on ourselves. We will chase this on as best we can!
NEW SCHEMES
In addition to continuing to look after our containers and obtain hanging baskets for the lamp posts on the North Deeside Road, which were such an attractive and popular feature of the village last summer, we are also planning to approach selected householders shortly with two new schemes to make our main thoroughfare even more colourful - "Adopt a Basket" and "Take a Tree". The titles are pretty self explanatory - we would provide the plants and the householders would look after them - to the benefit of the village and all passers-by, including tourists, who we hope will stop and patronise our businesses.
Finally we are on the look out for a piece of waste ground in the village which can be turned into a community garden, possibly with assistance from the Lottery Fund for example
FINDING THE FUNDING Needless to say we are hoping for more helpers and more funds to help us in these ambitious projects. You will find a leaflet along with this Courier. If you think you can help us in any way, please fill in a form and either post it to our secretary, Catherine Lacy - send an e mail to her at catherine.lacyroberts@btinternet.com We would be delighted to hear from you. For more information about Cutter in Bloom you could also visit our new website www.culterinbloom.org.uk
Erik Stien Chairman, Culter in Bloom Sub-Committee, CCC.