Category Archives: News

Christmas Round Up

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Christmas Gathering 2025

Thank you to all those that joined us for our Christmas Gathering on 30th November. Many wreaths were made and hot chocolates sipped, all whilst listening to the fabulous Edinburgh Brass Band. Together we raised an amazing £1685.48 which will go towards developing and maintaining the park over the next year.

Starbank Park Wins Award

In other news, we were delighted to recently be awarded the It’s Your Neighbourhood award 2025.

It’s Your Neighbourhood is an award managed by Keep Scotland Beautiful and the Royal Horticultural Society. The award is is designed for volunteer-led community groups which are cleaning and beautifying their neighbourhoods, whether through community allotments, after school wildlife clubs, school eco-groups, Friends of Park groups, or adopting pieces of derelict land.

Friends of Starbank Park won the award with a Level 5 – Outstanding and with a Certificate of Distinction.

Well done to all those involved for keeping the Park beautiful!

Park has final tidy before Christmas

This Saturday the volunteer group had one final tidy before Christmas, clearing the beds of old leaves and spreading a thick layer of (our very own!) compost onto the beds to suppress weeds and improve the soil.

This hard work was followed by some well deserved mulled wine and mince pies.

From all of us at Starbank, we wish our Friends, volunteers, followers, and all those that enjoy the park, a very Merry Christmas.

Glorious compost!

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In spring earlier this year, new composting bins were added to the back of the park, and after eight months of hard work, the compost is proving a success!

The bins are grouped in threes. The first bin contains layers of chopped up green waste (grass cuttings are very good for this), which is followed by a layer of wood chip or cardboard and then watered. The layering continues in this way. This bin is ‘turned’ every few months. This speeds up the composting process, allowing air and moisture into the compost.

Turning bin one into bin two:

After a couple of months, bin two is turned into bin three, which is where the compost becomes usable.

Good quality compost from bin three that we can use in the park:

A thanks to all the gardeners who are sorting and chopping the green waste and turning the bins.

We also have an area just for our leaf waste, seen here with gardeners boldly stamping it down to make way for more autumnal leaves!

A successful Cherry Blossom Picnic!

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A big thank you to everyone who came and supported the Cherry Blossom Picnic last Sunday, and to Edinburgh Brass Band for providing wonderful music. The event was extremely successful, helped by the good weather! An incredible £2,020 was raised, which will go a long way towards enabling the Friends to continue their measures to enhance and develop the Park.

Christmas Wreath Making

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The Christmas wreath making weekend held on the 1st December was a success with a great turnout and Edinburgh Brass Band providing a very festive soundtrack. We’ve shared some photos of the event below, and wish all our Friends, volunteers, followers, and all those that enjoy the park, a very Merry Christmas.

Starbank Park Wins Award

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A cause for celebration! Friends of Starbank Park wins It’s Your Neighbourhood award 2024.

It’s Your Neighbourhood is an award managed by Keep Scotland Beautiful and the Royal Horticultural Society. The award is is designed for volunteer-led community groups which are cleaning and beautifying their neighbourhoods, whether through community allotments, after school wildlife clubs, school eco-groups, Friends of Park groups, or adopting pieces of derelict land.

Friends of Starbank Park won the award with a Level 5 – Outstanding and with a Certificate of Distinction.

Well done to all those involved for keeping the Park beautiful!

New Perennial Bed

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A new perennial bed was designed and planted earlier this year by one of our fantastic volunteers. The redesign of Perennial Bed 31 (now called the blue and white bed) is part of the continuous development of the park where we are planning to give each of the perennial beds a refresh.

The overall brief was to create an elegant, perennial display based around a colour palette of blue/purple and white. Being attractive to pollinators and people is a must. Whilst the main flowering season is in the summer, it was key to create interest from early spring right through to autumn and winter.

The bed can be viewed from all sides so the design uses drifts of planting to draw your eye into and through the bed from different angles. These drifts sweep through to the centre where vertical height is achieved with layered planting using taller plants such as white Digitalis (foxgloves) and Campanula pyramidalis ‘Albus’ which can grow to 2.5m in height.

Going into winter/early spring, the display will start with Helleborus niger. These will be accompanied and succeeded by a spring display of blue and white bulbous flowers such as Laucojum, Muscari, Scilla sibrica, white Narcissus, and white Tulipa. At the same time, Dicentra alba will put on its spring show while the Hakonechloa macra forms into fresh cushions of grass as the other perennials emerge.

Next it’s time for the blue Iris to stand tall, with the white spikes of the Veronica longifolia ‘Schneeriesin’ hot on it’s heels, leading us in to the summer display of the blue Centaurea montana, Echinops, Eryngium and Agapanthus which contrast with the white Achillea millefolium ‘White Beauty’, Digitalis purpurea ‘Alba’ and the towering Campanula pyramidalis ‘Alba.

And if the bees and insects weren’t happy enough, you’ll find them all over the Agastache ‘Blue Fortune’ which takes us into late summer/autumn alongside the Aster frikartii ‘Monch’.

We hope you enjoy seeing this bed mature and grow over the years. See how many bees you can count on the Agastache come summer time.

Perennial list:
Achillea millefolium ‘White Beauty’
Agastache ‘Blue Fortune’
Agapanthus ‘Giant Blue’
Aster frikartii ‘Mönch’
Campanula pyramidalis ‘ Alba’
Centaurea montana
Dicentra spectabilis ‘Alba’
Digitalis purpurea ‘Alba’
Echinops ritro ‘Veitch’s Blue’
Eryngium planum
Hakonechloa macra
Helleborus niger
Iris
Veronica longifolia ‘Schneeriesin’