Let's DIG THE CITY, Manchester!

A Look at Manchester's Urban Garden and Flower Festival

Manchester: you've given us an Irish Festival, a Jazz Festival, an International Festival, a Histories Festival, and now you've given us our very own Urban Garden and Flower Festival, AND we're still only in July with so much more to look forward to. All this week Manchester City Centre has been celebrating the 'Dig the City Urban Garden Festival' with the main event taking place inside Manchester Cathedral where over 30,000 flowers have been on display in stunning and incredibly creative floral displays taking visitors through Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons', down the stairs to visit Eliza in 'My Fair Lady', across the room for a taste of 'Brown Sugar' and finishing up at 'Wonderwall.' Make sense? 

The photo to the left is a section from one of my favourite arrangements, 'Singing in the Rain' (Radcliffe Floral Art Group)

Manchester Cathedral during Dig the City

To the right is 'Brown Sugar', in the Rock & Roll, Pop section of the Cathedral (Hale Barnes Flower Club)


To the left is a section of the stunning 'Madam Butterfly' arrangement from the 'Timeline of Composers' section (St Mary's, Prestwich). 

 Beautifully positioned in the Cathedral, 'Walk Through the Fire' really does make you stop and look. Another favourite of mine (Bolton Floral Art Group).

'Singing in the Rain'

With 15 different areas to visit around the Medieval Quarter of Manchester, Dig the City has been an ambitious project and I think it has been successful in terms of bringing people and organisations together. As well as the Cathedral, the brand new National Football Museum (which I have yet to visit!), Manchester Arndale and the newly re-branded Corn Exchange (formally the Triangle) have all put on events and activities to get into the flower power spirit. On top of all that, I enjoyed a bit of a wander around the surrounding Cathedral Gardens, the Jubilee Garden, Groundwork Manchester's 'Living Street'  and community gardens growing everything from lettuces to parsley and tomatoes. I spoke to one of the many keen and passionate volunteers about the community gardens and it was fantastic to hear how all the food growing would be going to the Booth Centre to be put to good use (the Booth Centre is a day centre that provides activities, advice and support to homeless people in Manchester).

The Volunteer Legacy Garden outside the Cathedral

    Great to see The Corn Exchange, now back to using its historic name, taking part in the floral festivities of Dig the City this week...

The building's atrium floor was transformed into a Mad Hatter's tea party display from that well known classic, Alice in Wonderland. A large round table was scattered with vintage mismatched china teacups and cake stands adorned with soft lemon and dusky pink roses, peonies and sweet peas. The table was surrounded with baskets of flowers, classic books open on aged pages waiting to be read.  As a sucker for afternoon tea I thought the display was simple yet elegant and a very creative way to take part in Dig the City.

As someone who feels passionately about people having access to green and open spaces in urban areas, it's great to see that an event like Dig the City has generated so much interest. We need some big things to happen in this city before I will be saying how wonderful and green Manchester is, but getting people (and more importantly children and young people) interested in gardens, flowers and plants and growing your own food is a good place to start. I hope Dig the City will become a permanent feature in Manchester's summer events calender. Congratulations to everyone involved!