A group of primary school children have been planting strawberries, sweet peas, pansies, runner beans and potatoes at their local retirement living community.
Pupils from Menston Primary School visited The Spindles, an Adlington Retirement Living community on Bradford Road in Menston, for some spring planting in the community’s gardens.
Alexandra Johnson, Sales and Marketing Director for Adlington Retirement Living, said: “We thoroughly enjoyed hosting the group of budding gardeners from Menston Primary school. Planting flowers together is a great way to connect with our local community. The project has been very well received by our homeowners.”
Adlington Retirement Living’s garden design expert, James King, was on hand along with Josh Slater, to brief the junior gardeners and to oversee the planting.
Alexandra Johnson added: “James and his team design and maintain the landscaped gardens at all of our Adlington Retirement Living communities. They bring our vision to life wonderfully, adapting and changing their designs to suit each individual location, to ensure a wonderful space for our homeowners to enjoy all year round. Here in Menston they have planted a wonderful combination of bulbs for early Spring colour and evergreens for all year-round coverage. They’ve also planned thoughtful seating and pathways around the gardens to create areas for quiet reflection, along with a summer house for socialising.”
Angela, who moved to The Spindles with her husband Tim in May 2023, said: “We enjoy having the beautiful gardens here without having to maintain them ourselves. We went away to Croatia for a week with our daughter last summer. It was so nice just to pack up our things and shut the door without having to think about mowing the lawn or deadheading the roses before going.”
Alexandra Johnson added: “The raised beds give any of our homeowners who enjoy gardening an opportunity to grow their own flowers and vegetables so they can enjoy spending some time outdoors in the company of their fellow gardeners. With the wet weather we’ve been having recently, I think they’re grateful that the youngsters who visited this week have made a good start to their spring planting.”
The project was coordinated with Mrs Gilmour, Deputy Headteacher, Mrs Meakin and Mrs Turnock, both KS1 teaching assistants, at Menston Primary School.
Mrs Meakin said: “We were so pleased when Adlington Retirement Living got in touch with us to suggest the gardening activity. The children were really excited to visit The Spindles, and to work with their professional gardeners. We hope to visit again in the future so that they can meet some of the homeowners and see the flowers, fruit and vegetables that they planted when they’ve grown.”
