Small and container gardens: 3 Diane Gibson

Jul 23 2008 by Val Javin, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

DIANE Gibson continues to put the wow into window boxes.

DIANE Gibson continues to put the wow into window boxes.

This is the human dynamo who gets a whole community gardening. If you didn’t have a window box when you moved into the Paddock street where Diane and her mum are neighbours, then you soon will have.

For Diane, and a few like-minded residents are doing their best to give their whole community flower power. And it seems to be working.

For one thing, you can’t miss the homes of Diane and her mum. In a terraced street not far from the town centre, this infectious gardener has packed boxes, baskets and flower pouches with enough blooms to stop the traffic.

Painted pots and paper flowers on an inner passageway wall mean that nothing stops this house blooming all year round.

Behind the family’s home, more than a hundred pots ensure that wherever the eye turns, it’s hit squarely by colour.

“I just love to flower things up,” says Diane who when she is not looking after her mum and two teenaged children works at a local post office.

She’s recently discovered solar lighting and now enjoys her garden even in the dark. “I sometimes come out here in my dressing gown, sit on the seat and look at the flowers or wander around and do a bit of dead-heading. I just love it.

This year she’s had great success with sweet peas as well as every kind of annual you could name and next year - she aims to add more fruit and vegetables to her basket grown strawberries.

You get the impression that nothing will stop this bundle of gardening energy.