River of Flowers

Overview

Engaging communities with rivers is important. The Trust worked in partnership with the River Avon Federation to carry out a project raising the profile of the River Avon and highlight its history.

The project consisted of sponsoring the serpentine bed in Linlithgow which winds its way down from Linlithgow High Street to Linlithgow Loch. The bed is maintained by Burgh Beautiful who rent it out to businesses and community groups in Linlithgow to keep the area looking beautiful.

The Trust and Federation planned to create a stunning river of flowers with different sections telling a different Story.  At the top: a story of how the river was heavily polluted by industry, especially the local leather tanning works which used to make the river run red at times, this area was planted with red flowers.

The river then flows towards the wall which was used to depict the weirs constructed to power the mills in the 17th and 18th centuries, and white flowers were used to show the turbulent waters flowing over the weir.

As the river winds towards Linlithgow Loch, a change occurs and the colour of flowers changes from oranges, yellows to white then light blue and dark blue to depict how the river has improved over recent years.

At each stage, a small notice board was placed with information about the River Avon, the flower bed and the organisations involved.

Volunteers helped plant and maintain the bed throughout the summer until it was time to return the flower bed to how we found it, removing the plants and adding them to the compost heap ready for whoever takes on the challenge of planting the serpentine bed next year.

Thank you to everyone who visited the bed and found it interesting, the volunteers who helped plant, maintain and dismantle the bed and also to Burgh Beautiful for allowing us to take part in making Linlithgow so colourful.  

Funder

This project was funded by the Forth Rivers Trust and the River Avon Federation.