The Orchards park has won another David Bellamy Conservation Award with the help and enthusiasm of the residents and is the only Residential Park in the UK to achieve 17 consecutive years. Comments from the assessor this year included • “a really lovely park” • “a green and pleasant place to live” • “the gardens around the homes are very well established & colourful”
Author: Orchards
Tree and Bulb planting
We have planted another 50 trees in the meadow to continue to add to the variety and interest. We have also re-planted the main entrance, removing the old conifers and planting over 20 berried, variegated hollies, nearly 1000 daffodils and laying turf.
David Bellamy Conservation Awards – Another Gold Award
A really big “Thank you” for everyone on the Orchards Park as we achieved an unrivalled 16th consecutive Gold David Bellamy Conservation Award, comments from the assessor include • “the Residents gardens are all well managed and full of flowers and attract a lot of wildlife” • “the overall impression is of an attractive well tendered residential park with mature gardens and completely litter free” • “I cannot fault the existing management and therefore, only have one additional recommendation for the site “Well done indeed”
Willow
In the meadow around a south facing seat, we have created a living Willow sculpture. We intend in the years to come to continue to develop it.
New Cards for Lives
One of our talented residents has been inspired by the meadow and has painted a selection of meadow flowers which we have used on cards and had printed. All proceeds from the sale of the cards goes to LIVES.
Dexter Arrives
We held an afternoon tea party for LIVES (Lincolnshire Integrated Voluntary Emergency Services), which included a 45th Birthday cake, complete with their logo. LIVES is our nominated charity and Ellie, the Ruskington paramedic gave a talk on her duties and equipment. Our £1200 donation from the Residents purchased the mascot (Dexter) which will help in collecting further donations. The remainder of the money was used to purchase equipment needed in the Ruskington area. Many of the Residents also had their photo taken with the 7foot tall Dexter. The park has now donated over £12,000 to LIVES. LIVES medically train locally based volunteers who aim to be with patients within 5-6 minutes of a 999 call.
Park Rules
Our new park rules (PDF document) have now been completed after consultation with the residents, and are now with North Kesteven District Council and on their website.
Meadow development
As part of a way to develop the meadow and increase the floristic diversity in the woodland area we decided to plant 1000 blue bells with the help of residents.
David Bellamy Conservation Awards – 15 years
We thank everyone for their help to achieve our 15th year of consecutive Gold’s with David Bellamy. We have now received our formal report and some of the comments included – “the residents gardens are all well managed and full of flowers and attract a lot of wildlife” – “the overall impression is of an attractive well tendered residential park with mature gardens and completely litter free”
Duck!
One of our residents has had a mother duck making use of their shed roof as a nesting ground. The ducklings needed a good bit of encouragement by mum to make the big jump out of the nest! But all are doing fine and finding the various ponds on the park for their swimming lessons.