The green project
The beginning
I moved to this part of Chippenham in 1992, Foghamshire Green was full of buddleias and the butterflies were in abundance in those years, a beautiful sight.
Two small children living nearby would come and play and we made a sort of Den the place was lovely and life with wild life.
Then in 2002 I was diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia and my health deteriorated, my social life was hospitals, treatments, test etc. was not able to do much outside and as the years went by the brambles and ivy took over, strangled the buddleias and the whole place got overgrown, the beautiful stone wall got covered with ivy and often people would put up a tent hiding behind the brambles, the council would remove them but the place was left full of rubbish.
As I did not have much energy and could do little during treatment time I watched lots of films and one of those films was “The bucket list” never hear of that before and was not aware what a bucket list was so the film enlightened me, I thought what a good idea so I tried to make a list myself only to discover I had lived my life each day as if it was the last one so I had nothing to put on the list, a sad thing but a reality, then my last treatment seemed to work this time a Stem Cell Transplant or as many people call it a bone marrow transplant from an unrelated donor.
As I slowly started to recover the idea of rescuing the green from the ivy and brambles seemed a good thing for the bucket list so I made a plan that if I did 3 meters per year maybe if I continue to do well with my health one day it would be done for the benefit of all in the area.
It is now over 5 years since I started and the work shows, I would have never been able to do this without the help of my tree surgeon Steve Soward, he removed the brambles and rescued the wall from the ivy in the early years then as things began to take shape we started to plan the landscape and in 2017 we managed to clean up all the way down to the pavement,
I think in the course of all those years we managed to clean out almost 50 syringes, I have to thank the contractor that cut the grass who always took away in their special box all the syringes we found, it seems now it is all clear and clean and I have been told the police is very pleased that they do no longer have to spent time checking the side as being so open no one can hide behind the brambles and people enjoy sitting under the shade relaxing and wildlife flourishes.
So you can see the progress I am including some photos of the various stages of this journey.
I also have to thank the local farmer that provide the most excellent compost mixed with manure at a very reasonable cost.
The first area I cleaned I planted 15kg of daffodils which looked beautiful the following spring, I continued to do that every year some years I planted 20, 25kg and started to plant perennial plants and self-seeded plants that would take little maintenance work and would bring colour to the area.
With the help of Steve Soward I made raised beds around the large trees and started to make paths so it would make life simple while maintaining the ground.
It is not yet all done but at least now one can see how beautiful all looks.
Of the original buddleias only 3 survived, fortunately they are very prolific and any plant I saw growing anywhere I would pot it and later on I transferred to the Green so far I have planted 6 which are doing very well and have flowered, I intend to make a plan listing the plants to make it easier for those people helping in the future to know what is already there,
If anyone one likes gardening or is interesting to learn I would welcome a hand from time to time.
Steve Soward who is a very experienced tree surgeon and knows a lot about landscaping and trees is going to continue to help shaping the area keeping it natural like if we were in the woods so I hope this new face of the green in 2019 will see some more interesting things. I bought some gladioli to plant this year, the forget-me-nots will have to come out late May or early June but by then the seeds will drop ready to come next year,
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