Copyright © Tetbury in Bloom
This website uses cookies - but only to count visitors anonymously. Feel free to disable cookies if you don’t want to be counted.
London Road Beds Summer 2008 and Summer 2009
The London Road Beds Project:
Up to and including 2005, the three London Road beds were planted with colourful formal bedding displays.
In 2005 the theme for the formal bedding displays was the three armed forces
Top left—the Army cap badge insignia including the lynx
Top right –the roundel of the RAF
Bottom—The White Ensign of the Navy
In June 2006, they received their sustainable theme make over and in order to achieve the same colourful impact we chose a vibrant colour scheme of red, orange and yellow
We planted a frame work of sustainable red berberis, yellow choisya and phormiums together with perennials such as potentillas & geum in the same colour theme to provide all year interest. The beds were then completed with yellow, red and orange nemesia.
Summer 2006
In 2007 the beds had done very well over their first year and in the Autumn we added many daffodil and tulip bulbs to create a wonderful Spring display in Spring 2008.
Spring 2008
In 2008 the beds have started to mature nicely and the colour scheme is a definite success. Bedding of antirrhinums, geraniums and begonias are used to keep the colour going all season long.
The 3 London Road beds Summer 2008
In 2012 after struggling for years in the shade and dryness caused by the willow tree, we decided to grass over the central round bed but left the daffodils so that every spring they come up and form a fantastic display together with the tulips in the other beds.
Over the years the planting in these beds has remained much the same. The shrubs and perennials have proved successful and continue to form a frame work for the summer and spring displays. In June we plant a vibrant mixture of red, scarlet and orange bedding geraniums, with antirrhinums to add a bit of height towards the rear. Once the bedding plants are removed in October, the long flowering penstemons and fuchsias carry on the floral theme until the first frosts. Come February the beds start to fill with colour again with the emergence of early flowering crocus, daffodils and then tulips.
The six tubs have been planted with a central cone shaped box tree to provide interest all year round together with Tete a Tete bulbs that come into flower in February/March time. During the summer months, geraniums in the same colour theme as those used in the beds are added.
Early Spring with a show of early and later flowering crocus
Early April with a show of daffodils and tulips
London Road beds during the Summer months
A Change Of Planting Style For The Future
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 including Flower Carpet roses, which we had already tried in the London Road roundabout where they‘d been a brilliant success.
For summer 2024, we added a smattering of bedding geraniums whilst the roses and other plants were getting established. I expect we will continue to add them for a few summers to come but the amount will be greatly reduced year on year and hopefully the beds won’t need so much watering during the summer months but will still provide a lot of floral colour.
London Road small bed in September 2024