Blooming marvellous! Community rallies round to help gardeners in Littlemoor

A generous donation of plants and pots means a community garden in Littlemoor, Oldham is blooming again, just days after it was targeted by heartless thieves.

Cordylines in glazed pots, and containers of lobelia and bedding plants were among the items stolen from the garden, which green fingered customers Chris and Anita Lowe have been tending to for the past 16 months.

However, after hearing about the vandalism, we’ve come to the rescue together with Booths Garden Centre and donated plants, pots, soil and planters to get the garden growing again.

Trailing lobelia, petunia, cordyline and azaleas are now flourishing in the garden, which Chris and Anita started from scratch in February 2019 after the external areas in their block were refurbished.

“When the work was completed, two big planters were left for each bay to use and Chris and I started putting plants in ours,” Anita explains. “We started buying pots and plants, then buying more and more and from nothing we ended up with this beautiful looking garden.”

So successful has their handiwork been that last year it was named Best Community Garden in our annual gardening competition, called Growing Together.

“One of the competition judges called our garden a little Spanish corner, because of the riot of colourful plants and flowers, and name has stuck,” says Anita. “Neighbours in the block come down to sit in it daily and use the picnic table during the summer. It’s nice to see the space being used and enjoyed by us all.”

Anita, who has been a Littlemoor resident for four years, was devastated by the theft of her plants and couldn’t believe it when she heard the news we were stepping in with Booths to help: “When I saw that the plants and pots had been taken I was so sad, because how dare they just think they can just walk through and just take things like this? When I was told that new plants and pots were being donated I cried because I didn’t expect it. It was wonderful. Thank you very much – it means a lot.”

David Wrigley, Head of Neighbourhood Care said: “The Lowes have created something really special in the communal space at their block, and when we learned that someone had ruined their hard work, along with Booths, we wanted to help. Being able to get outside and enjoy nice surrounds is so important for wellbeing, and it’s more important than ever with so many of us at home because of Covid-19. We hope that our customers can enjoy their community garden again and we look forward to seeing them enter our gardening competitions again in the future.”

Oldham’s annual gardening competition, Growing Together, has unfortunately been cancelled in its usual format this year due to Covid-19, but we’re looking at alternative ways our green-fingered members of the community can get involved. We’ll be releasing details of this year’s plans shortly.