Kirkby Stephen Garden Trail 2005

2005 TRAIL REVIEW For the first time in 7 years we had rain on the first day of the trail, However, 87 visitors braved the elements and enjoyed it. The second day dawned fine, lady luck smiled upon us and gave another 219 visitors an excellent day out. So with 306 paying garden trailers we had another record year. The money raised, £1012.00 was up too, on last year, and is to be donated to the air ambulance service in Cumbria, which has of late been grounded through lack of funds, and the Kirkby Stephen Health Centre. The garden which served cream teas so well last year, has done it again for us this year, raising £306. There was an increase too at the garden selling ice cream and lollipops. Our other money raising effort was the quiz. This year the Garden Trail Club formed a working partnership with Fold Gallery a local non profit making organization, here in Kirkby Stephen. We raised a grant through "Awards for all" to fund an Artist in Residence to work with the gardeners and create a sculpture and a theme that would link all the gardens. Sue Flowers was our chosen artist, her name a coincidence, she devised two major pieces of artwork, 'Flowerbed' and 'Hanging Slippers' Working through Fold, Sue visited all the gardens on the trail and took hundreds of photographs. As well she interviewed all the gardeners. From this she gained inspiration and offered several ideas for us to choose from. We chose the Flowerbed and the Slippers theme and selected garden No2 for the Flowerbed, the 50 planted up slippers to be distributed throughout the rest of the gardens and some hung at selected locations in the main street of the town. 'Flowerbed' The artwork is a new interpretation of a three dimensional bed, decorated with photographic images taken from images relating to the trail gardens. The bed, which was manufactured locally, was situated in the centre of the magnificent lawn of garden No2, had a planted up pillow, a planted up pair of slippers and a planted 'potty'. The bed contained a mirrored quilt section, which reflected the light and passing sky. The photographic images on the quilt represented many aspects of the trails gardens. 'Planted Slippers the garden trail theme came into being when the artist discovered that many gardeners gardened in slippers, giving a humorous slant to this serious business of gardening. Think of yourself, how many times have you just slipped out to the garden to nip off a few deadheads, in your slippers. So our artist developed this into hanging slippers and we had ourselves a theme for this years garden trail.