President of the Barbados Horticultural Society, Orson Daisley; First Vice-President, Jennifer Weetch; and Second Vice-President, Dr. Frances Chandler.
By:
Marsha Gittens
The height of decorations placed at roundabouts across the island should not matter.
This view was expressed by Second Vice-President of the Barbados Horticultural Society (BHS), Dr. Frances Chandler who made the point that plants or other items used to beautify the circles should not be restricted to a certain height.
“It does not matter how high a plant is at a roundabout because you do not need to see across the roundabout. You need to see who is on your right and as soon as you look on your right and you see nobody you proceed. If you see somebody, you stop. So I don’t accept that argument at all… I was against the removal of the beautiful little house on the roundabout at Lears. It was a very attractive little house and I didn’t see that it was causing a problem but it was removed.”
Dr. Chandler was speaking at Wednesday’s launch of the BHS’ “Roundabout Beautification” Competition.
Addressing this event, BHS President, Orson Daisley stated that the competition will be opened to all landscapers, community groups and others who have an interest in beautifying the over 40 large and small public roundabout across Barbados.
He noted that the inaugural competition, which is being funded by the Peter Moore’s Trust, will benefit not only locals but also visitors. “Enhancement of our landscape will benefit not only Barbadians but visitors to the island, as well as contribute positively to the tourist industry because our mandate is to promote the understanding of and to encourage the interest and participation in all aspects of horticulture amongst residents of Barbados and visitors, and to this end that the island’s ambience will be steadily improved.”
Adding to this, Dr. Chandler said one of the aims of the beautification contest is to encourage the upkeep and sponsorship of roundabouts. “In the survey that I did, some of the roundabouts are sponsored – you see the advertisement of the sponsor on it, some are not sponsored at all – they have no name on it; some are not landscaped at all; some are new roundabouts which are now being landscaped and some are concrete. So we are trying to encourage those that have no landscaping to get sponsorship [though] quite a few of them are sponsored,” stated while adding that written permission from the Project Division of the Ministry of Transport is required to sponsor a roundabout.
The Roundabout Beautification Competition will be judged from April 4 to April 6. Participants will be judged in four categories; use of drought tolerant plants to increase the sustainability of the landscaping; diversity of plants; attractiveness of design and general condition or health of plants.
The winner will be awarded $4 000 00, while the second prize winner will received0 $2 000 00 in each category.
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