As well as group tasks throughout the year, our Barrow in Bloom volunteers also help to look after several green spaces around the village. For Barrow upon Soar Parish Council, we help to maintain specific areas at Millennium Park and King George V Park, and for Charnwood Borough Council some of the places we help to maintain are the rose beds and hedges in the Peace Garden at Holy Trinity Church.

At the Millennium Park our volunteers from Wild About Barrow help to look after the various wildflower areas. The old wildflower area at the entrance on Melton Road has been under our care for a few years now and is being reinvigorated this year, along with the wavy bed area that is on the banking facing Fishpool Way. Both areas are having fresh seeds sown to increase variety, colour, and seasonal display. Alison Rushton leads the Wild About Barrow team.

A superb effort from many volunteers who work tirelessly to improve our village ensuring that Barrow continues to be a wonderful place to live.

Cllr Antonia Goater

At King George V Park Parish Council contractors mow the grass and cut back the hedges while volunteers from our KGV Team help look after the Sensory Garden. We have been looking after the planting since 2022 when we held a community planting event with lots of donated plants, mainly from members of the now disbanded The Gardening Club. Many residents came along to lend a hand and a wider variety of plants was introduced. There is also a wonderful display of daffodils on either side of the garden and play area which were planted by families, volunteers and parish councillors over a couple of community events in 2019 and 2020.  Bill Hinds and Andrew Willis have been helping here right from the start and we all meet up weekly between March and November. Anne Freestone has recently joined the team but we also have help from other volunteers and the parish council for the bigger jobs such as laying the woodchip, or more recently cutting back the honeysuckle. Barrow upon Soar Parish Council provides our volunteers with insurance cover, without which we would not be able to operate; refreshments for our community events; and funding for tools and feed, as well as plants and flowers/bulbs/seeds etc, which is much needed as unfortunately some plants in the parks do get damaged or stolen.

We, as a community, are so blessed to have such a group of residents who give their time and skills to keep the village looking great.  Thank you.

Cllr Sharon Gudger 

Holy Trinity Church Peace Garden is owned and maintained by Charnwood Borough Council and we have been very lucky to work with them, their contractors idverde, and the Church ECO team since 2021 to look after the rose beds and the berberis hedges in the Peace Garden (also known as the Memorial Garden). With advice from idverde we cleared the old rose beds of a substantial build-up of weeds after the area had been left to its own devices for some years, and planted lots of blue Rozanne geraniums, and more recently we added some new red roses and yellow daffodils. This combination, once fully established, should be low maintenance but provide wonderful colour from spring until autumn. Our Barrow in Bloom volunteers water, weed, and feed the beds on a regular basis, and every year we top up the woodchip, and stain the benches to keep everything looking as good as possible.

Annette Richardson