MANCHESTER LOOKS

Summer garden festival brings a burst of colour to the city centre with pop-up meadows and orchards as

MANCHESTER city centre has been transformed into a tropical oasis as Dig the City gets underway.

The summer garden festival, which is in its third year, offers a chance for garden designers, businesses, shops, landscapers – both experienced and up-and-coming – to showcase their designs for gardens.

This year the theme is innovate and interact and among the gardens are a pop-up meadow, an erupting garden from the cracks in Manchester’s pavements and a pop-up orchard peddling ‘Dig The City Cider’ and ‘Moss Side Mojitos’.

TV garden designer Diarmuid Gavin was in town as part of the launch yesterday and was impressed that the city and the transport network had gone green for the event.

Diarmuid caught the tram to the new-look Deansgate-Castlefield stop, which boasts a huge ‘living wall’ with plants and flowers while trams passing through the station appear to move along a bed of grass thanks to blocks of sedum planted between tracks.

The surface is already teeming with wildflowers.

Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) has developed the stop as part of the Metrolink expansion programme – giving it two new green slate paved platforms, a brand new line of track and improved access and passenger facilities.

After a tour of the stop, Diarmuid said: “It’s great to see something as functional as an urban tram stop transformed into a green space.

“The landscaping has clearly been at the heart of the design and it’s a great example of how, with a little thought, our public spaces can go green.

“I’m sure bringing nature in to the stop is brightening up the daily commute for tram passengers here in Manchester.”

Dig the City will be in Manchester until Thursday.