Second Place!!

At the prestigious Annual Garden Square Awards last Thursday we received second prize in the keenly contested Small Private Square category. Only those squares who have won a prize are invited so we knew we had secured at least third but it was a great pleasure to hear we had actually won second place!

All thanks must go to the team of Peter, Jean and Maz who worked so hard to get the garden in such fine shape for the judging weekend last June. Second prize is one better than our previous best showing (in 2006) and the gardening team think that going one better is not out of reach. Bring on 2012…

Autumn Committee Meeting

Here is a summary of the items discussed at our Autumn meeting:

We’re winners! Montpelier Square has placed in the top three in the annual Garden Square competition. Our exact position (Gold, Silver or Bronze) will be announced at the prize giving on November 2nd at the Guildhall. Our gardening team and Lady Marshall have every right to feel a glow of pride as we were competing against 50 other squares. We’re hoping to improve on our third place showing in 2006.

The annual budget for extra planting is to be increased to £2000 from £1500 in order to bring some Autumn colour to the garden. Our finest time is always Spring and we are hoping to extend colour and interest further through the gardening year with this additional planting.

Westminster City Council have requested that we plant two additional London Plane trees on the North side of the garden. The London Plane is a magnificent tree and they help define some of the best avenues in London but their sheer size can overwhelm a small space like Montpelier Square so Westminster have acquiesced to our suggestion of planting an Elm instead. They still want one Plane but a compromise has been reached. To this end we are looking to plant a Princeton elm this autumn, somewhere on the NE corner of the square.

DRAFTminutes20Sep2011.pdf