Dumfries Adoptive Railway Gardeners Add Some Christmas Cheer To Platform 2

The community gardeners at Dumfries train station have been busy transforming the little train into Santa’s sleigh.

DGWGO caught up with lead volunteer Ann Roberts to find out more.

Ann told DGWGO

“We’re a group of volunteer gardeners, as part of the Scot Rail Adoptive Garden Scheme, and we’re called the Dumfries Adoptive Railway Gardeners or DARG for short.

This year, as a bit of fun, seeing as it’s been such an awful year COVID wise we thought we would turn the little train, that is a permanent feature here with plants in it, into a Santa sleigh just to brighten things up a little bit.

So we’ve painted it red, it’s got golden runners and in the back, we’ve got some snow-covered bushes to give an impression that the sleigh is moving quickly from platform 2.

We’ve been volunteering at the gardens now as a group for the last couple of years. We formed in 2019. There was a garden group here before that so there’s actually been gardening at the station for about the last 10-12 years And our aim really is to beautify the station for travellers, passengers, the general public and we have a garden on platform one and platform two.

So there’s quite a lot for us to keep a keep clear and we’re trying to make it now as environmentally friendly as possible so we’re now planting trees, shrubs and perennial plants rather than a lot of annuals so that it will be more environmentally friendly for bees and the birds as well.

The group meet each Monday morning to tend to the gardens and you can email for more info [email protected]