History of North Walsham in Bloom
In 1996 the Town Association was formed and from this it was decided to enter the town in the Town in Bloom Competition. So North Walsham in Bloom was formed.
A Floral Train was the first thing to be accomplished, and this was placed on the grass verge on the Norwich Road, where our Boat now stands. To comply with the Town in Bloom competition conditions it was necessary to produce portfolios, these were compiled from photos taken by the members. Over the years we have won numerous accolades for our efforts including Bronze, Silver and Silver Gilt awards. However, a few years ago the criteria for awarding points was changed and significant points were docked if the Judges saw any litter etc. We also lost points for large bottle and clothing banks etc that were not landscaped as well as derelict building sites. At the time the town had several derelict sites and we were unable to find a route around the town without going past at least one of them. At the same time Anglia in Bloom raised the entry fees and expected all participates to sell quite a lot of raffle tickets as they had lost their sponsorship from Rail Track. So, it was decided to change the way we looked at In Bloom and moved direction from making the town look really good for judging day and concentrate our efforts on making the town look good all the year round, and duly left the competition.
One of our Committee members in the early stages of the organisation persuaded the Landlord of the Bluebell Public House to use some of the money he raised from his quiz nights for our funds. Money from these quizzes has now finished, but we remain extremely grateful to the Bluebell Public House and their Landlord Terry Miller for all the support we received during our early years.
The Town Council was then persuaded to support our efforts with a grant and the whole thing took off. In the early stages our efforts were very experimental and at times very time consuming. We had the use of some out of town greenhouses and for a while we planted our own hanging baskets and raised all our own bedding this became unviable as we started to get bigger and the plants needed a lot of attention not to mention watering. It was then decided to try for other sponsorship around the Town, and this together with our Town Collection and two Coffee Mornings a year now provide our funds for the year. We are not a cheap organisation to run, as we have to pay our watering contractor who uses our own water bowser. We have been fortunate enough to obtain a grant from North Walsham Town Council to buy a new water bowser. With all the new beds we now maintain this was sorely needed, and should be a great asset. We also need to pay for third-party liability insurance as well as buying all the plants we use.
We now have fifteen large beds, nine towers and more than two dozen tubs
What a long way we have come.
