Gardening Buddies replant flowerbeds

FLOWERBEDS in Mill Meadows, Henley, have been replanted.

Catherine Notaras and Joan Edwards, who are members of the Gardening Buddies, refreshed the twinning and Rotary beds.

They planted wildflowers, biennials and perennials, including rudbeckia, Japanese anemone, Michaelmas daisies and stachys lanata, taken from Ms Notaras’s garden in Elizabeth Road.

She said: “You can separate them and replant them, so there’s a continuous cycle and it’s less wasteful.

“They come up every year and they’re very good pollinators and tend to extend the season of pollination. You know they’re going to come up year after year and the wildlife knows, too.”

The duo worked together for a couple of hours, tending the beds, pruning and weeding as well as planting.

Ms Notaras, who is chairwoman of Henley in Bloom, said: “We’re here basically to support the town council’s parks staff. They’re doing a great job and we do the bits that need doing in between, such as weeding.

“We do need new members. We’ve got about eight but about four may turn up. August is a little bit thin because of childminding and holidays and things.”

The Gardening Buddies were set up by former Mayor Liz Hodgkin and meets once a month.

They have a “buddy bed” in Reading Road and also look after the Henley Lions’ bed nearby, the wheelbarrow on the Reading Road roundabout and the beds in the Mill Lane car park and in Newtown Road.

Ms Edwards, from Shiplake, joined nine years ago.

She said: “When I came here, I lived in a flat in Station Road where the old train used to turn around and garden buddies were outside working on it with blue shirts on and I came down and said, ‘Can I help?’ and that was it.”