On Friday 13th June the Mayor and Mayoress, Councillor and Mrs. Szanto met children from St. John's Meads CE School to view their winning garden design that has now been planted at Holywell. Earlier in the year artwork on the theme of "Wildlife in Bloom" was judged at the Town Hall.
The design represents a swan made of two outstretched hands with an eye and heart incorporated and suggests how the children would like us all to look out for and care for our wildlife. The garden design will remain in place throughout the summer and into early autumn.
The competition was organised by the Eastbourne Education Business Partnership and sponsored by Firebrand and Weather Shop. Eastbourne Parks and Gardens Section provided the plants and supervised the planting carried out by Wyevale Grounds Maintenance.
Coast Magazine sponsor seafront garden display
Gardeners have been hard at work recently completing a specially designed bed at the west end of the Carpet Gardens near the pier. The bed has been generously sponsored by Coast Magazine and accompanying this name there are seagulls and a silhouette of Eastbourne pier to complete the seaside theme.
The whole design has been created using nearly 3,000 plants and a background of white gravel. The marking out and planting took two garden staff just a couple of days to complete and should remain in place until the cooler weather mid-autumn.
The Coast Magazine bed should provide good publicity for the sponsor whilst the welcome sponsorship enables traditional carpet gardening methods to continue to be used to produce unique displays here in Eastbourne.
The net effect of seagull damage
Following reports of vandalism to the Carpet Gardens further investigation proved the culprits to be delinquent seagulls. A small number of gulls had day after day been pulling up freshly planted summer bedding. The likely reason, it appears, is that the freshly tilled ground and new plants made it easy to search for food below.
After persevering with having to replant quite a lot of plants each day it was decided that netting would be the only solution that could let the plants root and establish without disturbance. The nets were put in place during the last two weeks of June and have now been removed. The end result, so far, is hardly any more plants being lifted by our feathered friends.
Summer garden preparation nears completion
Since late May the Wyevale Grounds Maintenance staff have been hard at work completing preparations for the main summer season. Lawns have been weeded and fed, shrubs tidied and summer bedding planted in place of the spring bulbs and earlier bedding. In highway areas Milhams (Eastbourne) have been mowing the verges that have grown endlessly in the wet and warm weather experienced so far this year.
On the seafront one of the final jobs was the completion of the traditional carpet panels and badge beds at the Carpet Gardens. Unlike the side borders that rely on flower colour for their impact there are several beds that are planted in a different way. These beds use smaller plants that have distinctive leaf colours. Planted at densities of up to 400 per square metre it is possible to produce intricate geometric patterns and even lettering.
This year there are two carpet panels planted within the Carpet Gardens and two nearby beds sponsored by Coast Magazine and Wyevale Grounds Maintenance.
