The  Fire Station Bed Summer 2008

The Fire Station Bed Project:

In Summer 2006 the bed outside the Fire Station received a welcomed makeover. An appropriate colour scheme of red, yellow, orange and white was chosen using perennials and shrubs including gaillardia, heuchera, crocosmia and the aptly named kniphofia - ‘Tetbury Torch’. These were planted together with a few annuals such as red begonias and geraniums, yellow antirrhinums and white marguerites. Little has changed since the original makeover and the bed continues to be a great success, especially so in the Spring.

The original bed was weeded, dug over and widened before putting in the new plants

The newly finished bed matching very nicely with the fire engine!!

                   

Summer 2007, one year on and the bed has filled out quite nicely

In Autumn 2007 we added some colour co-coordinated tulip and daffodil bulbs to brighten the bed in Spring

Over the years the sustainable planting within this bed has remained very much the same, and does well.

How the bed looks during the summer months with the yearly addition of vibrant coloured geraniums

The spring display of tulips continues to be a success year on year.

Following Britain having its hottest driest summer on record in 2022, with temperatures for the first time ever reaching above 40 degrees Celsius and us having to spend almost every night over the summer months watering all the beds and displays in town just to keep them alive, never mind getting them to thrive, we decided we needed to change our style of planting style throughout the town.

We decided that in most of the locations we tend, including the fire station bed,  we would no longer add summer bedding plants and instead in the autumn of that year, we planted a lot of different long-flowering perennial plants and small shrubs.

These have done well in this bed and they provide sufficient floral colour throughout the summer months without requiring anywhere near as much watering as the bedding plants did.