The Knapp Bed in 2008 and 2009

The Knapp Bed Project:

The Knapp bed was planted in May 2005 by the members of the newly formed Tetbury in Bloom Committee. Colourful foliage plants were used including the dark leafed physocarpus, golden lonicera, golden euonymus, lavender, variegated arabis, chives, alchemilla mollis with flowering perennials including red penstemons and phlox together with annuals of white marguerites and pink semperflora begonias.

Since then the bed has grown and matured. In Autumn 2007 the bed was planted with several hundred daffodil and tulips to create welcome Spring displays for years to come.

In 2008 we enlarged the bed slightly, removed the lavenders and hebes which had outgrown their position and these have been transplanted in other areas of the town. Since then we have introduced hardy fuchsias, leuchanthemums and planted several hundred crocus bulbs to increase the flowering period another month from February right through to the first frosts in October/November.

The Knapp bed in April 2005 prior to replanting

    

Preparing the bed for planting                                                                 Planting out

The finished bed in Summer 2005

Two summers on in 2007

Spring 2009                                                                        Summer 2009

In 2013, for no apparent reason, we lost one of the well established dark leafed physocarpus and choisya. Because of the symmetrical design of the bed, we felt we had no choice but to remove the sister plants. On the plus side though it gave us the opportunity to introduce more penstemons to create a more 'florally' look. The physocarpus were replaced by two red leafed acers and three pink leafed phormiums were added for a totally different affect.

Summer 2015

Spring 2016

By the end of 2019 the pink leafed phormiums hadn’t performed as well as we’d hoped and the leaves never looked very healthy, so we decided to replace those with the kniphofia ‘Tetbury Torch’. This variety of kniphofia was originally created at Close Nursery near to Tetbury, unfortunately the nursery is no more, but the plants can be found successfully growing in many of our other beds, especially the Fire Station and Priory Industrial Estate bed.

                  Summer (not showing the newly planted ‘Tetbury Torches’ yet!)

In 2022, Britain experienced the hottest and driest summer on record, with temperatures for the first time ever reaching above 40 degrees Celsius. Having planted our summer bedding geraniums in June, we then had to spend almost every night over the next two and half months watering all the beds and displays in town just to keep them alive, never mind getting them to thrive.  By the time the weather broke in September, it was time to start pulling all the bedding out again, ready for the autumn bulb planting schedule! Some of the plants hadn’t even got going from the day they were planted. Anyway, with the probability that we’d be experiencing more and more hot and dry summers in the future, with Global warming becoming more and more apparent, we decided we needed to change our style of planting and do it fast!. Instead of our normal bulb planting programme we spent the autumn sourcing a lot of different long-flowering perennial plants and small shrubs that we thought and hoped would fit the bill and theyse were added in to many of the beds.