Green-fingered Laura creates a bog garden
Community garden near town centre is there for all to enjoy
A KEEN gardener from Hinckley has made a unique creation for her community to enjoy.
Laura Greenan has been sprucing up a stretch of soil beds on Mount Road for the past five years, planting flowers and herbs.
Her latest installation is a ‘bog garden’ including two toilet bowls turned planters, filled with tulips, sweetpeas and daylilies.
She said: “I like using weird things for planters. Colanders are good. You can use anything, as long as you can put holes in the bottom.
“I have got a wheelbarrow that I’m going to fill with soil and put plants in.”
Laura has also planted some 200 tulips in the beds, which border the car park of Hinckley Leisure Centre.
She and her sister, who live on the street, were able to get a horde of supplies from Hawgrip Plant Centre, in Enderby, just before it closed because of the Covid-19 crisis.
Another pretty creation that she looks after there is the Little Hinckley garden, with figurines and mini houses, near Mount Road Baptist Church.
People leave a lot of donations at her door for the community project and she also uses clippings from her own garden to develop the greenery.
The devoted gardener spends about an hour a day watering and tending the plants.
She said: “It’s nice and quiet of an evening and I can trundle up with my wagon. People come up and do things when they fancy.”
In 2018, she built a greenhouse made of two litre plastic bottles, using a frame she had in her front garden.
She also does some litter picking in the leisure centre car park, where she often finds odd socks.
The community garden has come a long way since it started a few years ago.
Laura said: “This was just rock hard soil, with nothing in. It’s taken ages to dig it and let the rain get in. It was definitely worth it.
“Other neighbours chip in. Children make bits to hang in the trees.”
Bird feeders and yarn ornaments have put been put up in the trees that overhang the beds.
For more information, visit the Little Hinckley page on Facebook.