Human Shrub - nice parks, but more to do

Roddy Ashworth

COLCHESTER'S most mysterious gardener yesterday welcomed news of the town's Green Flag awards.

The awards are given to the best parks in the entire country and were announced at a special ceremony in Bournemouth last night.

Colchester picked up three flags - for its cemetery and crematorium, Castle Park and High Woods Country Park.

But the Human Shrub highlighted the plight of other plants in the surrounding area and called for the reinstatement of public decorative gardens that were pulled up earlier this year.

The renegade horticulturalist first came to prominence in April when he protested successfully against a council money-saving measure to uproot and turf over one fifth of Colchester's roadside shrubberies and rosebushes.

More recently the vegetative campaigner hit the headlines when he was spotted tidying up one of the council's neglected, weed-strewn civic plant containers and bedding in some flowers and a small bush.

Yesterday, he told the EADT: “While I am grateful for those humans responsible for the Castle Park, County Park and Cemetery, we can't forget the injustice against the bees who have no flowers on the hill.

“Roses have been ripped out from the roundabouts and on Hubert Road and until these are replaced I cannot be happy.”