THE Borough Gardens in Bridport are now ‘bloomin’ lovely’ following a successful spring planting programme.

In March this year, members of the Friends of the Earth organisation planted wild flower areas in the gardens as part of their National Bee Cause campaign.

It was so successful the gardens bloomed and there was an abundance of wild flowers by July and in the rest of the summer months, and cornflowers also grew during September, attracting hundreds of bees to the site.

Friends of the Earth had supplied the group with the seeds, which are accustomed to growing in an urban environment.

Volunteer Elizabeth Friend was at the original planting in March.

She said: “There were six of us back in March, including former Mayor Dave Rickard and current mayor Maggie Ray and we were also helped by members of the public.

“It took us about one hour to plant the seeds and I am absolutely astonished by the results. I have done this sort of thing before and nothing happened and I even told the others not to expect anything in the first year, and now it is full of wild flowers.

“The wet start to the spring and the summer, followed by the lovely weather we have had since June has really helped the flowers and it’s now going from strength to strength.”

In three weeks the group will return to scythe the plants down and are hoping they won’t have to plant any more seeds because of this year’s success.

Mrs Friend added: “Because of the success we have had we are hoping we won’t have to scatter any more seeds but if we have to we will.

“We did it as part of the national ‘Bee Cause’ strategy by Friends of the Earth, because bee numbers are decreasing at a very fast rate. This is part of our campaign and we have also sent hundreds of post cards to David Cameron to try and stop the sale of pesticides which kill bees.”

The borough gardens can be visited by members of the public, but the area has been cordoned off to protect the flowers.