December 2017 – Hook in Bloom Gets Ready for Winter
To celebrate Hook In Bloom a lovely Chainsaw Rose Sculpture was erected in the raised bed outside Boots. This has been under planted with alliums and there are white Michaelmas daisies, which we will need to control, in the bed too. Created by Rob Beckinsale, who has worked around the district for Hart, it is hoped that we will commission more in the future. It is planned that Rob will be at the Hook Flower and Produce Show next September whilst he creates our next sculpture.
Next Spring we hope you will see lots of bulbs to the Basingstoke side of Hook’s War Memorial. The planting was part of the pre-winter push to get 1500 bulbs planted in the village over two October weekend mornings – mainly crocus, Tete a Tete and King Alfred daffodils. We breathed a sigh of relief and thought that would be the end of our bulb planting – but no In Bloom volunteers decided they wanted to plant even more! So as Hook Focus goes to press we will be planting crocus and daffodils near the train station and Tesco. Our aim is to keeping adding bulbs each year.
Luckily for the War Memorial planting a member of the Rotary Club joined us to show us where the purple Rotary Crocus had been planted as part of their End Polio Now Campaign. Thanks to the campaign the amount of polio-endemic countries has dropped from 125 to just 3. So when you see the purple crocus either side of the war memorial next spring think just how much the Rotarians have achieved. The In Bloom crocus are yellow and mauve and are planted beyond the Rotary’s purple crocus where daffodils were planted as well.
Hook centre has been tidied for winter and we will periodically feed and water the troughs in and around the village to keep them going until next year.
The In Bloom volunteers met in November to talk about next year’s tasks and included in the planned planting so far are:
1) More bulbs to the Hook side of the war memorial
2) Back Entry to the school
3) Around the fence of the Holt Park playground
4) Wellworth Park – roses and bulbs
5) Around the Station area
6) Station bank nearest The Raven
7) And a raised planted bed probably near the wild flowers as you come into Hook from the M3
8) More wildflower plantings as they were so popular in 2017
And then, fingers crossed, lots more exciting activity which cannot be divulged until next year!
Tesco, as part of its BagsforHelp initiative, has very kindly given In Bloom a grant so that we can run the Hook Flower & Produce Show on 9th September 2018, the Hook in Bloom competition with its presentation that day as well, and therefore hopefully sustain the Hook in Bloom project as whole into 2019.
All this work does rely on volunteers so if you would like to help please go on to the Hook in Bloom Facebook page, the website, or email sue.hinton@hook.gov.uk – we would love to see you. ALSO – a plea – if anyone sees anyone tampering with the planting or generally vandalising, please can they report it to 101.
Hook in Bloom 