Q: What do old clothes, polystyrene boxes; silver foil and a
shoe holder have in common?
A: Well believe it or not they are all being recycled
at Ford Park, along with many others unusual items.
Old clothes from a
charity shop have been used to create the scarecrows.
The base was made from recycled wood and I
love the wellies on this one. Which one is your favourite?
The silver foil is also used to scare away the birds and
looks particular beautiful with the sun glinting off the foil. This idea is
wonderfully simple to make with a branch and the foil cut into
leave shapes and tied on loosely so they flutter in the breeze.
The polystyrene boxes were from the cafe and have been
recycled as planters for carrots. They were sown in October and the polystyrene
helps with insulation.
I think my favourite has to be the recycled shoe holder used
as a wall planter, another easy idea to copy for your garden.
Lots of other things have been recycled too; the two display
blackboards were adapted from a couple of old style gala game frames.
Some of the wooden guards protecting trees were also cut
down slightly as the trees were getting bigger and these were used to make
wooden planters.
If you have a wander round the garden, see if you can spot
the tiles that have been recycled and used as edging around paths. Any
containers that are donated are also used as planters.
I spoke to a couple of the volunteers to hear their views on
recycling.
Paddy told me he had used some rocks and various other
materials which then had numbers displayed on them to indicate the various
trees on the
tree trail, and also to be
careful about not adding certain weeds like dandelions to the compost heap as
these still had the potential to spread more seeds.
Chris said he liked the idea of “reduce, reuse & recycle”
and as you can see from the variety and volume of recycling it certainly works.
For more info on this go to:
Reduce, Reuse & Recycle