All Aboarders is the Welwyn Garden City Station Adoption Group. We are volunteer citizens greening WGC Station for the enjoyment of the travelling public. Since our beginnings in April 2018, we have worked hard to add new flower beds and planters while maintaining the existing shrubberies. All Aboarders have 17 active gardening volunteers and other members who are sponsors, donors and partners offering support and guidance.
Our gardening volunteers started by clearing existing platform flower beds and shrubberies of overgrown and dead shrubs; roses were pruned for the first time in many years. Shrubs such as witch hazel emerged from the undergrowth. Others, eg dogwood, were reinvigorated by hard pruning. Larger trees and shrubs are cut down to a manageable, more appropriate height, by Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) contractors, under our guidance.
Many new plants have been introduced. A local business was attracted by the early publicity and offered to supply three large wooden troughs. All Aboarders installed and planted these troughs in summer 2018 and continues to maintain them. When GTR started to renovate the station in 2018, it constructed two raised and two flat platform beds. We planted these with small shrubs, grasses, perennials, bulbs and annuals. The raised beds are surrounded by wooden seating.
Frequent watering parties keep plants alive during hot dry weather. While new planting will continue as new troughs and beds are installed, we are maintaining the existing plants, with pruning, gap filling and replacing annuals where necessary.
In early summer 2019 we ‘rescued’ spring plants and bulbs from WGC town centre flower beds, when they were removed as ‘green waste’ by council contractors to make way for summer planting. These have either been planted or stored.
Last updated August 2019
All Aboarders 