THE Crossgates Green Fingers Group, is putting the final touches to their plans to woo the judges of the Beautiful Fife and Beautiful Scotland competitions.

The Beautiful Fife judging day 23rd July and for Beautiful Scotland, judging day is 28th July.

The Green Fingers Group is hoping that their work will be rewarded with high gradings.

The Group’s Jenni Rutherford said this week that a lot of planting has been taking place to make Crossgates look good for the judges’ visits.

We have a series of photographs showing changes that have been taking place.

Said Jenni, “The first picture was taken at the entrance into Crossgates from the Dunfermline side.

“We wanted a wildflower meadow and this picture shows how it was prior to the alterations. The meadow is cut out in the shape of a butterfly and was achieved by the local council gardening crew. It was planted up with the assistance of the Crossgates Primary School children (second picture) “The next two pictures are of an upgrade to existing gardens that needed to be cleared out and replanted.

“This has been done and the local residents are particularly pleased as their outlook has been improved. They are also undertaking the watering of these plants.

“The next two pictures are of the gardens at the Miners Institute. This was a big project as there were old plants to be taken out, including a tree, and there is two beds.

“These were reshaped into an elongated diamond and is plant up in carpet bedding. This is a first for us to tackle this type of gardening and took some working out, stringing out then planting up. We wanted to challenge our gardening skills and provide a “star” feature for our display”.

Added Jenni, “This is our first time entering into Beautiful Scotland. We have been successful for the last three years in Beautiful Fife winning Silver Gilt each time, and for the last four years we have been given Outstanding in It’s Your Neighbourhood run by Keep Scotland Beautiful so we are hoping to do even better this year”.