Community set to grow green fingers with new garden bid

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Paisley is set to benefit from a new community garden after the town landed top slot in a prestigious competition.Barshaw Park will be the location for the feature after funding was earmarked when the town was named the only Scottish winner in the Royal Horticultural Society's Garden Day contest.UK winners, which also included Huntingdon in England and Randalstown in Northern Ireland, were unveiled on the BBC's popular One Show by JJ Chalmers.All four nations - including an as-yet-to-be named Welsh winner - will be handed funding to create the new community site.Don't miss the latest headlines from around Renfrewshire.

Sign up to our newsletters here.Paisley's garden will see the creation of a new space which pays tribute to the town's past link with the textile industry, and will feature the world-renowned Paisley Pattern design, created through curved and accessible raised beds - which will be specially-designed to accommodate a wheelchair comfortably.Local distillers' recycled barrels will be used to create the scene, which will also feature extensive trellis work, which will frame the entry way and offer fruit and flower training to help create an inviting and sociable space.The community garden, which will be on the site of the park's former Nature Corner, has been designed by landscape specialists Nicola Semple and Susan Begg, of Semple Begg and will be managed by volunteer organisation Friends of Barshaw Park, who will receive an additional £15,000 over the course of the next three years for investment in the garden and the group’s work within the community.

Irene McDonald, Chair of Friends of Barshaw Park, said: "Community gardens are all too often formal affairs, fenced off from the very people wanting to access