You may have noticed some attractive new flowerings in the planted areas around Esher High Street over the last six months. Since March this year, a group of volunteers known as the Esher Planters’ Club has been meeting every Friday morning (10 am in Hummings) and setting to work on the various planters in the centre of town (at least, those that are accessible without closing roads) with new plants of all kinds and a fair amount of weeding and watering.

We’re part of Esher in Bloom, a committee of the Esher Chamber of Commerce. Our aim is simple: to make central Esher a more pleasant place to live, work, shop and generally relax in. And, at the same time, have some fun!

We get our plants from various sources. Some local businesses and well-wishers sponsor our efforts with cash, or donations of plants and we are quite resourceful in finding, according to the season, plants that are surplus to requirements in our own gardens!

We have also encouraged very artistic decorations of those rather dull “black box” planters, some of which now feature portraits of famous Esher residents of yesteryear such as George Harrison, Maurice Gibb and Errol Brown.

It all started with a conversation in The Swan pub in February, when two of us made up our mind to stop moaning about the overgrown, weed-infested state of the planters and actually try to do something about it. A few weeks later, trowels, spades and forks to the ready, we were gathering with other like-minded folk to get stuck in! We started with the “palm tree” planter next to the old Barclays building and then moved on to the black boxes (seven altogether). Then came the biggest challenge; the areas outside Giro and Don Luis. These had been neglected for many years and were covered in very deeply-rooted ivy (and much else: don’t ask!). Happily, help was on hand from Keltbray, who kindly provided a team of very muscular chaps to do in a few hours what would have taken us many weeks. True community spirit! We are very grateful to them. I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank John, the guy from the Council who keeps our streets streets clean, for his invaluable assistance, week in, week out, in disposing of the significant quantities of vegetal “rubbish” our efforts produce!

Much remains (and will always remain) to be done. Our watering efforts are somewhat hand-to-mouth but we do have watering cans located at various local outlets (who will also provide water). It’s not as easy or efficient as a few hoses would be but it’s better than nothing, especially in the summer. We have tried to focus on plants that can cope with dry conditions but they all need a drop of water now and then.