Horticulture students transform overgrown roundabout near Shrewsbury
Green-fingered horticulture students have completed a project to design and create an eye-catching traffic roundabout in Baschurch.
Baschurch Parish Council chairman Jonathan Carr met with students from Derwen@Walford to thank them for their hard work transforming the weed-ridden island into a roundabout to be proud of.
Students from Derwen @Walford – a satellite site of national specialist college Derwen College - carried out the work for Baschurch Parish Council as part of their college business Leaf It To Us.
Leaf It To Us provides work experience opportunities for horticulture students with special educational needs and disabilities.
The team work four days a week with teacher Ruth Braddick and learning support assistant Dan Foster.
Mr Forster said: "John asked last year about doing something new and different for the roundabout and we were pleased to take him up on the offer.
“It was great to be given free rein from conception to creation. It was an over-grown bed full of weeds, and the only specifications were that we leave the daffodils which have become a well-loved spring feature, and plant a Rowan tree in the centre.
"Apart from that we had a blank canvas which we were able to design, plant and now maintain.”
Taking everyone’s input into consideration, students used their learning in horticulture as well as maths skills to measure the area and work out planting.
Clouncillor Carr said: “We are delighted with the work the Leaf It To Us have done. They were commissioned as part of a community project and the community have noticed and appreciated their efforts. Five thousands vehicles a day drive around this roundabout and will see what the Leaf It To Us team are capable of."
They also visited Baschurch Cemetery Memorial Garden where they created beds and a pergola with climbing plants.
Shropshire Biomass Fuel donated the bark and Worfield Plants supplied the plants for the project.
