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Stay connected with the latest news and updates from Friends of Coy Pond. Explore our recent features and stories that highlight the impact we have on the Poole community.
Fly the Flag
Aug 19, 2025
Another success for the Friends of Coy Pond! Once again, we have been awarded the Green Flag for our efforts in making Coy Pond gardens a delight to all that visit it, and for reaching out to the wider community. Of course we had a celebratory Green Flag raising ceremony. Here we see Robert Stanley, Head Gardener from the council, and John Hallett, Friend and volunteer gardener, a retired professional gardener.
The young onlooker is Robin, a relative of Friends, representing our aim to interest and engage children in the gardens. And every gardener knows you have only to pick up a spade, and there is a robin near you.
Afterwards, a goodly crowd of garden volunteers served cakes and home-made goodies with our morning coffee. Guests included Robert and his crew, Niki and Clive from Trees for Wimborne, who have donated two of our three rare Native Black Poplars, and Councillor Matthew Gillett, who is also a volunteer gardener as other duties permit.
Mayor of Poole Plants Rare Native Black Poplar Trees
Mar 4, 2025
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The Native Black Poplar is now very rare, with only a few dozen across Dorset. BBC South featured the work of Countryside Regeneration Trust (CRT) at Bere Marsh Farm, helping to save the tree.
John Preston, Friend of Coy Pond, and keen gardener, got in touch, offering to host young saplings.
Coy Pond gardens are part of the Bourne valley, the meadow on either side being water meadow, and thus ideally suited.
To welcome a pair of trees(male & female) to their new home The Friends wanted due ceremony. So the Mayor of Poole, Peter Miles came in full regalia, gold chain and all, to do the ceremonial planting. With a spade dating from use by Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh, in 1966 (and thus nearly as old as many of our active gardeners).
Also in attendance were ward councillors Karen Rampton and Matthew Gillett. Representing CRT, was Hannah Bosence, who was able to give us all some background. The Head Gardener, Robert Stanley was there, having ‘prepared the ground’ for the ceremony. The Mayor not only shovelled but also heeled each tree in well: clearly a gardener as well as a Mayor.
More than two dozen garden volunteers downed tools to attend the ceremony. Afterward the whole group withdrew to the gravel area in front of the pond itself. There, chairs and tables set out with light refreshments. A good start to the Friends new gardening season.
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** New ** Bug Pub
Feb 19, 2025
Along the banks of Coy Pond, and midst the 'mountains' of its 550 foot rockery, there is now a small chain hotels. Or, to be more strictly accurate, a chain of small 'hotels'.
‘Bournemouth is bourne free, but everywhere is in chines’ Karl Marx misquoted: or it may be his brother, Groucho. The latest addition to the Bug Hotels is now open for business.
This one takes the form of a country pub, a thatched whitewashed cottage. Bearing the name of ‘The Royal Oak Apple’. However, despite the name, it is not exclusive to regal Gall Wasps. All insects are welcome: no discrimination, from ladybirds to black-beetles. Ants too, if they promise not to be to hyperactive, (“Would you be calm and placid/If you were full of formic acid?”.) It is fully furnished, with teazels and miscanthus seed-heads and conveniently situated near the trees by the stone steps leading to Branksome Wood Road.
‘Thrip Adviser’ has awarded it five stars, and more than one comment has said “Lovely Grub”. But, of course, no immature insects are served alcohol. The ale is rather strong and if a young insect should ask, the pub landlord will say, “Ale?...and farewell!”. However, the small beer is small enough to be non-alcoholic.
For those interested in the construction details, it is made largely from wood, an eight foot plank cut in two, each an inch thick. The rumour that the architect is as thick as two short planks is entirely unfounded. The traditional thatching of Norfolk reed would be out of scale here. So the zebra grass from the Tropical Garden has been harvested this winter for the purpose. Aluminium girders have been built in for security rather than strength, so it can claim, like the old Irun Bru slogan, ‘made from girders’.
The bug hotels are amidst flowering plants, a delight to passers-by as well as pollinating insects. Both pond and rockery are maintained and improved by a workforce of a couple of dozen volunteer gardeners, ‘Friends of Coy Pond’. We work most Tuesday mornings in the season.
Come and join us: we are a friendly bunch. Gardening skills welcome but by no means essential: we work as a team in tranquil surroundings.