Community-spirited residents work hard to create memorial garden in Dingwall during Covid-19 coronavirus lockdown
GREEN-fingered volunteers have used the lockdown to rapidly lay the foundations for a new community garden that looks set to open next year.
About a dozen Dingwall volunteers have been hard at work over the past two months to help clear and transform almost an acre of ground behind the MacDonald monument to create a memorial garden.
The ground was previously covered in dead trees and overgrown foliage until local resident Billy Shanks came-up with the idea of turning it into a place the community could enjoy with spectacular views over the town, Ben Wyvis and the Black Isle.
He started clearing the foliage after getting the council’s permission when the lockdown started and his wife jokingly suggested he might like to find something to do with his time.
From that small beginning more and more volunteers turned up to lend a hand and on a shoe-string budget with a lot of good will, were able to establish clear progress towards the goal. Mr Shanks was first joined by local carpenter David Campbell and then by George Murray who made up the core group, however others like Pamela Mackenzie from Batty’s Baps, Martin Watson and Fraser Dwenger were among the others.
The ultimate aim is to create a wild garden with two viewing platforms, and restore a nearby stream with a bridge over it for somewhere to sit quietly. But out of respect to the proximity of the Mitchell Hill cemetery the garden would not be a picnic spot and its primary purpose would be one of peace and quiet and reflection for those who wanted to spend some time there.
Mr Shanks was first joined by local carpenter David Campbell and then by George Murray who made up the core group, however others like Pamela Mackenzie from Batty’s Baps, Martin Watson and Fraser Dwenger among others.
Billy Shanks said: “Myself and David had a chat about it in the Legion but I started in the first week of lockdown, I came down myself and just started cutting back the brambles and scrub and then it just escalated.
“David came up and gave me a hand then George came up too and then a few others. I really think it came at the right time because there were a lot of people wanting something to do when they couldn’t work.
“We got permission to do it through the council. The purpose of it is as a place of reflection for people who perhaps are visiting the graveyard or just to come up and enjoy the views.
David Campbell said: “Ideally we would like to do – if we get all the permissions – viewing platform because then you can have all the views. Every tree that came down was dead and we will actually be replacing trees and bushes.
“And because all the trees that had to be taken down were all dead it is nice to be utilising them for something and taking them back into good use.
“The local help we have had is amazing, Martin Watson for example, if we had hired his machine then it would have cost us thousands and Fraser Dwenger did an amazing job and everybody gave their time for free.”
Mr Murray pointed out that one of the positives of the project is that ability they have had so far to make a little go a long way, such as selling off the dead wood after it has been chopped to pay for the wildflowers.
He said: “People would be surprised that for us to buy the wildflower seeds alone came to over £800 and that is before you come to doing any landscaping. So we managed quite a lot in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost it would normally have taken.
“We were entirely self-funded and we took that wood and cut it up and sold it to people as fire wood and we took enough money from that but I would add that those who bought it got a pretty good deal.”