38th Annual Cleaner Community Garden Competition 2023

Letterkenny Tidy Towns launch the 38th Annual Cleaner Community Garden Competition

We are delighted to run our Annual Garden Competition for 2023 with four categories to enter this year – Best Large Garden, Best Small Garden, Best Wildlife Friendly Garden and our new award Best Kept Apartment Balcony Flower Display.

The competition is open now and will run until the 12th July 2023, the entries will then be judged and each category winner will receive a trophy and an Alcorns gift voucher. (Please note we can only accept entries from Letterkenny and the surrounding townlands.)

The Large Garden competition is known as the Sean Higgins Memorial Award. Adjudication will cover planting, colour including shrubs, grassy areas and flower borders encouraging wildlife.

The Small Garden competition is known as the Charles and Rose Devlin Memorial Award. Adjudication will cover planting, colour including shrubs, grassy areas, and flower borders encouraging wildlife.

The Wildlife-Friendly Garden competition is known as the May McClintock Memorial Award, sponsored by An Taisce. For examples of what we might be looking for in this category, see the biodiversity section of our website.

Our new category this year is Best Kept Apartment Balcony Flower Display Award, this category will cover flower/plany displays and making the most of your space.

We can’t wait to see the amazing gardens in the Letterkenny area – SEND your entries NOW to lktidy@gmail.com or via our Facebook page or post/drop in pictures to Magees Pharmacy.

 

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Tidy Towns Spring Talks/Seminars

We have two great garden themed talks this April and May – coming up first is “Garden Birds Through the Seasons” with Aengus Kennedy of NatureNorthWest.

Aengus Kennedy will deliver a talk for approximately 1/1.5 hours on Garden Birds through the Seasons. We will look at some lost sounds to start – birds that were once very common in the Irish landscape and now nearly gone. This will be followed by what the common garden visitors do throughout the 4 seasons. We will finish with a short run down of a few of the more common bird songs.

Register now for this event taking place Tuesday 18th April at 8pm in the Station House Hotel >> https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/garden-birds-through-the-seasons-tickets-597103050297

Our second event takes place in Tuesday 2nd May, again in the Station House Hotel at 8pm with the topic being “Designing Your Garden For Pollinators”.

Joanne Butler of OURganic Gardens will give a talk on:

  • Designing a garden for pollinators , working with the elements in Donegal .
  • A year in our garden and challenges we face (working with nature rather than against it).
  • What best plants to grow that provide food & shelter .
  • Working with the pollinator plan in gardens (they may already do this so we can have a conversation around this).

Register now for this event >> https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/designing-your-garden-for-pollinators-tickets-597276629477

 

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Paint the Town Initiative

Do you own a Business in Letterkenny?
Would you love to Redecorate your shop front or premises but don’t know where to start?
Letterkenny Tidy Towns are collaborating with La Maison to help you choose the perfect colours.
We will organise a consultation for you with La Maison and you purchase your paint and organise your painter.
Watson Hire is also offering a discount on paint in their store.
If interested please send us a message on Facebook or email lktidy@gmail.com
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Buy a Pollinator Tree and.. Get Second One Half Price

As part of our Biodiversity initiatives we are bringing back our pollinating tree offer!

We are delighted to be partnering with local garden centre Alcorns on this great biodiversity initiative. Buy a pollinator tree and get second one Half Price. Please note, this offer is while stocks last and you must provide your Eircode on purchase. (Personal details will not be shared publicly.)

List of fruit trees available for this offer:

Apple

  • Elstar
  • Jona gold
  • Golden delicious
  • James greive
  • Apffel
  • Mela

Cherry

  • Early rivers
  • Morello
  • Black cherry

Pear

  • Conference pear
  • Williams pear

Trio apple, pear (3 verities in one plant)

Duo apple, pear (2 verities in one plant)

 

Large selection of fruit trees available ranging from €24 to €36, Irish trees all suitable for cross pollination.

For more information on these trees please contact Craig at Alcorns on 074 – 9121541.

Happy planting!

The Letterkenny Tidy Towns team

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Letterkenny Tidy Towns launch the 36th Annual Cleaner Community Garden Competition

Letterkenny Tidy Towns launch the 36th Annual Cleaner Community Garden Competition

We are delighted to run our Annual Garden Competition for 2022 with three categories to enter – Best Large Garden, Best Small Garden and Best Wildlife Friendly Garden. Each category is dedicated to previous Tidy Town members.

The competition is open now and will run until the 31st July 2022, the entries will then be judged and each category winner will receive a trophy and an Alcorns gift voucher. (Please note we can only accept entries from Letterkenny and the surrounding townlands.)

The Large Garden competition is known as the Sean Higgins Memorial Award. Adjudication will cover planting, colour including shrubs, grassy areas and flower borders encouraging wildlife.

2021 Large Garden Winner

 

The Small Garden competition is known as the Charles and Rose Devlin Memorial Award. Adjudication will cover planting, colour including shrubs, grassy areas, and flower borders encouraging wildlife.

2021 Small Garden Winner

 

The Wildlife-Friendly Garden competition is known as the May McClintock Memorial Award, sponsored by An Taisce. For examples of what we might be looking for in this category, see the biodiversity section of our website.

Wildlife Garden Winner 2021

 

We can’t wait to see the amazing gardens in the Letterkenny area – SEND your entries NOW to lktidy@gmail.com or post/drop in pictures to Magees Pharmacy.

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Plans for 2022

The following article appeared in the Letterkenny Leader on April 7th

At our recent AGM, plans for Letterkenny Tidy Towns initiatives for 2022 were discussed. This month’s column will go over some of the highlights.

Murals

We have 3 Flight of the Bee Murals at Lower Main Street, at the Jim McCormick Memorial Garden and at the old ESB site on Port Road. These were done by Karl Porter of UV Arts. Due largely to Covid restrictions, there was a delay in completing the remaining 2 murals at the Quiet Moment and at Insomnia, however Ciaran Dunlevy has been commissioned to complete the last 2 murals. Judging by his work at Church Lane, these two final pieces should be perfect to complete the mural trail!

In conjunction with the murals, we are working on an app which will guide visitors around the trail, and would hopefully take in other trails around the town. It’s in early stages of development, but could be a real asset to the town’s tourist industry once it’s up and running.

Keeping the Town Clean and Tidy

A core part of our remit is to keep the town looking clean and tidy, and this year as usual we will have a number of schemes in place to help achieve this.

Firstly, as per usual we will have our Sunday litter picks, where a group of volunteers meets up at Market Square at 10.30 on Sundays, and Neil, our coordinator, keeps everyone stocked with gloves, bags, high vis jackets and litter grabbers. All are welcome, and you can just turn up and join us any time. A warm welcome is assured!

The Paint the Town initiative will continue, where we provide assistance to businesses to design colour schemes and spruce up the outside of their premises.

The Spring Clean week and the Clean Sweep initiative are to be launched in April.

The Clean Sweep is an initiative where we encourage business owners to look after their own area

The Spring Clean Week is a national campaign, organised by An Taisce, in which residents who sign up to organise a spring clean of their local area, whether it be an estate or a local road, are provided with advice and equipment. Last year , volunteers collected an estimated 2800 tonnes of litter. If your community would like to join in, you can register at http://nationalspringclean.org.

Cleaner Community Campaign is to be launched in April with all the competitions attached to it. This is our annual competition, with such categories as ‘Best small/large/wildlife friendly garden’, ‘Best kept estate’, ‘Best kept shop front’ and so on. This leads to our awards night in the autumn. We are hopeful that this year the awards night will be in person, as we have missed meeting and thanking our volunteers in person the last couple of years, thanks to Covid.

Pipeline Projects

There are also a couple of schemes in the pipeline, which still have to be worked out. More details will follow. These include a Sustainability Survey and a possible Streets and derelict buildings seminar with Church Lane.

In Addition to these initiatives, we have a number of plans based around improving biodiversity, and I’ll cover those in a future column.

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Gold!

The following article appeared in the Letterkenny Leader on December 2nd 2021.

Gold!

We were delighted to hear that in the results of the National Tidy Towns competition, Letterkenny was awarded a gold medal, and was announced as tidiest town in Donegal. Well done also to runners up Buncrana and Glenties, and to national winners Ennis. Special praise was given to the transformation of Church Lane and the success of our volunteer programme. So thanks very much to our 70-plus volunteers who made that happen!

Our volunteers have been involved in litter picking, tidying up green areas, developing biodiversity areas, sprucing up the paths and fences at spots such as Roger’s Burn and the Famine Garden, helping to deliver and install flower boxes around the town, and much much more, and all of this continues to make the town a more liveable and pleasant place. As many people commented on our Facebook page, you’re all a credit to the town. Below I will single out 3 of the volunteers who made huge contributions this year, but every single one of our volunteers and committee members deserves a big pat on the back.

Charlie’s Angels

One volunteer who is behind a lot of the Tidy Towns initiatives is Charlie Grant. A true Tidy Towns stalwart, Charlie is often seen out and about with his crews of volunteers, tidying up green areas, mending and painting fences, planting flowers and much more. His crew have been referred to as Charlie’s Angels, or the Ninja Gardeners, and if you see them out and about, do give them a ‘Hello’ or a toot of the car horn, as they all do great work for the town.

Charlie Grant

Neil Blockley

Another key committee member is Neil Blockley. Not only is Neil often seen out and about with Charlie’s Angels, but he is also the coordinator of the Sunday litter picks. Neil took it upon himself to increase the number of volunteers picking litter around the town, and organised a map of the town showing picking routes. Each Sunday from around March to November Neil is down at the Market Square handing out bags, gloves and hi vis jackets and discussing with the volunteers which areas most need picking.

Neil (right) with Tidy Towns co-Chair Gerard McCormick

The Phantom Litter Picker

Last but not least, there was one volunteer who put in a herculean effort on behalf of Tidy Towns. None other than the Phantom Litter Picker himself, John Wilkie. John took it on himself to clean up the dual carriageway. That 5km stretch of road was in quite a bad state at the start of the summer, with months (or even years in some spots) of accumulated litter. Everything from drink cans, coffee cups and takeaway wrappers to bits of household furniture and chunks of cars. Over the course of several weeks/months, John chipped away at it, and 260 bags later, most of the litter was gone. As with most litter hotspots, litter will often reappear almost as soon as it is picked, but John kept chipping away and now the dual carriageway is looking a lot better.

John Wilkie with bespoke head gear

Calendar

To mark the work done by our volunteers this year (and every year, really!) , we are launching the Tidy Towns calendar for 2022. It will be available at Magees Pharmacy and Brian McCormick Sports & Leisure for just 5 Euros, and features photos of the work done by our volunteers during 2021.

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Thankyou To Our Volunteers

The following article appeared in the Letterkenny Leader on 3rd November 2021.

As we come to the end of the year, it will soon be time for the Tidy Towns Results to be announced. However highly Letterkenny scores in the results, we are proud of the improvements that have been made to the town both this year and in previous years. None of which could have been done without our volunteers, who turn out in all weathers to pick litter, tidy up green areas, paint fences, mend fences, plant flower beds and everything else that is done to improve the look of the town.

The volunteers gather at the Brewery

Recently, we held a coffee morning at the Brewery, where co-chair Gerard McCormick and co-ordinator Neil Blockley both spoke to the volunteers to give thanks for all their work. The following is an excerpt from an open letter to volunteers, penned by Gerard.

Open Letter

To all the Tidy Towns Volunteers:

On behalf of the Letterkenny Tidy Towns Committee, I would like to sincerely thank each and every one of you for all your work and efforts that you have given to your town this year.

When Neil came to us with his idea of starting a structured volunteering plan which is based on the famous “table” at the Market Square on Sunday mornings along with promoting the good work done on Social Media, we never thought that it would be such a success.

On reflection, it has been successful for two reasons, firstly, the selfless spirit of all you volunteers who reached out to us and gave your time freely to improve the fabric of the town by making it clean and tidy, secondly the hard work and organisation that Neil has put into this initiative from the very start. These two reasons have been instrumental in the success of the initiative, we salute you all.

We are told by the National Tidy Towns Unit that the Tidy Town results will be released sometime in November and we are excited about this, after the cancelled competition last year.

You never know what will happen in this competition, but we do know one thing, we have all worked extremely hard to have Letterkenny in the best shape possible and we should all be very proud of that as the Tidy Town year winds down.

I would just like to conclude that we hope that you have enjoyed volunteering with Tidy Towns as it is in the giving that we receive the most in life. We look forward to continue working with you all as we strive to improve our beautiful town.

Gerard addresses the volunteers while Neil looks on.

Charlie Grant, organiser of many of Letterkenny Tidy Towns’ projects

Pollinating Trees

In order to promote the planting of pollinating trees, we are working with Alcorns Garden Centre in Kiltoy. Members of the public can go into Alcorns and select 2 pollinator friendly trees. Letterkenny Tidy Towns will pay for whichever is the cheaper of the two. Nine tree varieties are on offer, including rowans, ashes, weeping willows, cherry blossom and many more. To find out more, contact Craig on 074 9121541 or visit www.alcorns.ie.

 

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Pollinator Friendly Areas Register – Buy a Pollinator Friendly Tree & Get Another Free Campaign – NOW CLOSED

This offer is now closed, thank you to all who participated.

As part of our Biodiversity initiatives we are building a register of pollinator friendly areas in Letterkenny!

We are delighted to be partnering with local garden centre Alcorns on this great biodiversity initiative. For every pollinator friendly tree(s) purchase we will provide one pollinator tree completely free of charge (that tree being of lesser or equal value).  Please note, this offer is while stocks last and one free tree per customer only.

If you can please complete a register form at the time of purchase in Alcorn so that we can add your Eircode and tree details to the pollinator friendly area register.  NOTE – your personal information will NOT be displayed in any way or provided to a third party.

The trees on offer are:

  • Prunus Kanzan (Cherry Blossom)
  • Prunus Fugenzo (flowering cherry)
  • Sorbus Nigra (purple leaf plum, pink flower)
  • Sorbus Vilmorini (pink berry ash)
  • Sorbus scalaris (Chinese Ash –  white flower pink berry)
  • Sorbus Comixta (Japanese Rowan)
  • Sorbus Acuparia (sheer water seedling)
  • Pyrus Pendula (weeping pear, white flower)
  • Salix Kilmarnock (weeping willow)
  • Cotoneaster coral beauty
  • Ceonthus Victoria
  • Cotoneaster Cornubia
  • Cotoneaster Pendula
  • Pyrus Chanticleer (celery pear)
  • Malus hyshop ( blue tinged crab apple )
  • Malus Red Sentinel (crab apple)

There will be more tree types available in spring for any more information on these trees please contact Craig at Alcorns on 074 – 9121541.

Happy planting!

The Letterkenny Tidy Towns team

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Litter Picking – Tidy Times 7th October 2021

Our litter picking group continue to do great work in keeping Letterkenny clean. In recent weeks we have had a few first timers, which is always great to see, and our regulars continue to do great work. Many of our volunteers meet at the Market Square on Sunday mornings from 10.30, where Neil, our coordinator, directs them towards the areas which most need cleaning up, and provides any bags, gloves etc that might be needed. Other volunteers go out at whatever time it suits them, some on a weekly basis and others on a more occasional basis. However often each person goes out litter picking, it is all much appreciated, and we always stress to our volunteers that it is entirely up to them how often they get involved. We are always looking for new volunteers, and all are welcome to join us.

Some of our volunteers recently told us how infuriating it was to see that Kiltoy, which they had cleaned that Sunday, was already fairly badly littered again by the Tuesday morning. This is a common experience, and a source of frustration to all of us who have volunteered, but unfortunately all we can do is keep chipping away at it in the hope that eventually people might be less inclined to drop litter once an area is kept clean. Many studies have shown that the more littered an area is, the more likely certain people are to add to the litter. Whereas if an area is spotless and beautiful, then the casual litterer may well think twice before hoinking that coffee cup/drink can/takeaway wrapper out of the car window. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I hope I’m not the only one!

Some of the litter found on Kiltoy

One way in which litter can be reduced is by incentivising people not to drop it. Which is why we were delighted to hear of Lidl’s plans to give vouchers for 10c per plastic bottle or aluminium can returned to its stores. Those of us of a certain age can remember when this was the norm for glass bottles, and even today, in Canada you will pay a little extra to buy glass or plastic bottles and can get your deposit returned when you take back the empties. The result is that most people will return their bottles, but even where people don’t there’s a mini industry in people who go round collecting litter in order to collect the deposits.

In conjunction with this, it stands to reason that if less waste is produced in the first place then less will end up as litter. So we are always glad to hear of initiatives by the supermarkets to reduce packaging. They have a long way to go, but at least it’s on their radar, which is a good start, and it’s up to all of us, as customers, to make sure it stays on their radar.

And finally, the perfect way to reduce litter is to catch them young. If it is instilled in our children from a young age that dropping litter is an unacceptable thing to do, then they are far less likely to drop litter themselves, or to grow up into adults who think it’s ok to leave their takeaway wrapper by the roadside. We were delighted to meet a group from Ballyraine FC a while back who were part of a community clean up. For this reason, we sponsored a ‘Junior litter warrior’ competition this summer where we invited facebook followers to send in photos of their kids getting involved in a litter pick. A winner was selected at random each month. We were delighted with the response, and thanks to all who entered.

The Junior Litter Warriors for August

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