Category Archives: Events

KDBM 10th Anniversary

It’s hard to believe but our little band of volunteers, under the title of ‘Keeping Duns Blooming Marvellous’ has reached it’s 10th Anniversary. Back in October 2015, I contacted Scottish Borders Council to ask why the large flower bed in the Public Park was empty and, by the end of the conversation, had taken on the daunting task of cultivating it!

Fast forward 10 years and we now have 13 large flower beds, 45 planters of various sizes, a wild flower bed and a giant pile of tyres softened with planting to create a colourful show all year round. It’s a daunting task to keep on top of all of that but, with a fantastic bunch of fun folk ready to take on all sorts of challenges, we manage it all. Always with a laugh and always ready to take on new projects we crack on from Feb to Dec then hibernate for the harshest of the winter months.

Hot drinks and ice cream at the end of each gardening session are always enjoyed and we love when the locals honk horns or wave at us in the passing – great encouragement! Our ‘Flowerbed Trail’ is well supported by locals and visitors and we hope that people do spend time on the website learning about all the different beds and flowers we have planted. There is also a fantastic section for children of all ages to encourage all sorts of activities in gardening. Perfectly suited for schools and youth groups such as Nurseries and Guiding.
It’s a lot of work, but we love it and hope that you do too.

Scotland’s Garden Scheme Duns July 2025

What a lovely day we had on Sunday at our ‘Scotland’s Gardens Scheme’(SGS) open day in Duns.   All gardeners love their own private space, usually hidden behind their houses, and we were all extremely privileged to be given free access to these perfect sanctuaries during the afternoon of Sunday 20^th July.   Spoilt rotten to have 16 of these wonderful spaces to explore, I can only show a very small selection on this blog, which is such a shame.   IF we do this again in 2026, PLEASE free up your calendar and come along, you most certainly won’t be disappointed.   A footfall of over 150 people from as far afield as the Isle of Skye had a fantastic time in lovely sunshine, culminating in refreshments in our cosy Market Square and at the Volunteer Hall, where the tickets and maps were on sale.   The Plant Sale was a roaring success and the three tables of produce soon disappeared – as did all the cakes inside the hall!   Thank you to our generous garden owners for their hard work and our volunteers for all the invaluable help on the day.  Also to SGS for their support and guidance.  All proceeds from the day go to SGS and our two chosen local charities – Duns First Responders and Duns Paramedics (BASICS).

Plant Sale 27th April 2025

Another hugely successful day at the Volunteer Hall with our annual fund- raising plant sale.  It got so busy we didn’t have time to take pictures but you can see from the early pictures we certainly weren’t short of plants on the day!  We are always so well supported by local folks that we have trays of, mostly perennial plants, being dropped off all week prior to the big day!   We even had an outside stand for trees, larger plants and garden-alia and our volunteer Dominique soon shifted all the lovely terracotta pots.   The refreshments team were set up early and did a roaring trade with sausage and mash or veg soup with a great variety of cakes and biscuits.   At the end of the day a huge amount of money was made, ensuring we are able, once again, to Keep Duns Looking Blooming Marvellous all year.   Thank you to all our volunteers and to the lovely residents of Duns and District.

See you next year!

Litter Pick

Keep Scotland Beautiful held their annual Community Clean Up between 21st March and 21st April and KDBM decided to take part over the weekend of 28th, 29th & 30th March. What a lot of rubbish- literally!! So many people stepped up to help clean up or lovely town and neighboring roads. A special thanks to our Community Policeman Kriss MacLeod, Duns & District Rotary, Duns Primary school, Berwickshire High School, Scottish Borders Council and all the good folk of Duns including, of course, our own KDBM volunteers. We even had our local MSP Rachael Hamilton and our own MP John Lamont join us. Everyone played a part in making a difference, however, I just wish I could say that’s it done for ever now. No chance!! Until things change and more education is given to the next generation plus a huge reducing of the use of plastics, we will be back again with our litter pickers clearing up after silly people who flout the law.

Plants galore at KDBM plant sale

What a fantastic day we had at our 2024 annual plant sale on Sunday!   An unbelievable response with plants donated and a HUGE crowd waiting at the door.  Honestly, Harrod’s eat your heart out! – come to Duns if you want to see a sale crowd 🙂.  The atmosphere was brilliant, food yummy, raffle over flowing with goodies and everyone seemed to be going out with smiles on their faces and arms full of plants.   We apologise to anyone who couldn’t quite get to the tables, we were somewhat overwhelmed with the numbers but we did our best.  More and more tables were added to accommodate the plants and the number of happy people wanting a cuppa, cake or something more substantial.  Sausage and Mash or Soup options went down extremely well and the cakes all disappeared.  I just managed to grab a slice of Lemon Drizzle before it all went.   All the money raised will be spent on our town and we have lots of ideas for the town beds plus we are adding new circular planters on the railings around the trees in the Market Square.  Have to confirm the date for the 2025 sale but it will hopefully be the first Sunday after PlayFest so…..probably 11th May TBC.   A huge thank you to all the volunteers who helped out before and after the event, preparing and tidying up.  And an even bigger one for the gang who were on duty on the day – whew, did we all need that glass of something chilled at the end!  But mostly, thank you to all the people who visited and supported our work.

Flower Trail Launch

Brilliant launch on Tuesday evening although the weather could have been kinder! Our new Duns Flowerbed Trail is now up and running so we hope you all go out and enjoy it. For the tech minded amongst us just use your phone to scan the QR codes on each of the twelve plaques, one on each bed, to access the information about the history of the bed and the plants used. For those of us who are not so tech minded please pick up a leaflet and map in a number of our local shops and cafes as well as the container by the main map on the first bed on the corner of Easter and Currie St leading in to the Market Square. Follow the trail throughout or just dip in and out as you wander about town – something for everyone interested in gardening and plants. Thank you to the support from Jim Carnie, Duns Community Council, Councillor Mark Rowley and most especially to our own Lord Lieutenant of Berwickshire Jeanna Swan.

SBC Open Doors event, Volunteer Hall Duns

Sunday 3rd September saw us joining other volunteer groups showcasing their work during the SBC sponsored ‘Open Doors’ event held at the Volunteer Hall in Duns. Being a beautiful sunny afternoon I think most people chose to spend the time outside but we had a few visitors who enjoyed finding out about what goes on in Duns. We were able to talk about our new ‘Flowerbed Trail’ which is being launched on 19th September (watch this space!) and were very pleased to spend time chatting to a couple from Malton, Nth Yorkshire, who were on holiday and were admiring Duns flowerbeds. Being members of the Malton volunteer garden group they were very happy to quiz us on our work and took away lots of ideas to discuss with their own group. Our fame spreads!!!

Volunteering Mini Fair

We had an enjoyable afternoon at this week’s ‘ Volunteering Mini Fair’ at the Berwickshire High School.  It was good to meet up with S5 and S6 pupils and show them the work we do. There was a fair amount of interest in our before and after photographs.  It was also great opportunity to tell them about the new Flowerbed Trail.

They were a nice bunch of kids who seemed to enjoy themselves.

Thank you event

‘Last night we held a ‘thank you’ event for our volunteers and for our garden owners who so generously opened their gardens to the public to make Duns third ‘Open Garden’ event on behalf of Scotland’s Gardens Scheme, held on Sunday 18th June, such a success and what a lovely evening we had! The ‘fizz’ was flowing and the nibbles completely vanished amid chatter and laughter. In 2022 the charity we championed was Abundant Borders and Duns Community Garden, helping them to take on five students from Berwickshire High School to train towards Horticultural achievements. This has been so successful that two of the students are now going on to study at Newtown St Boswells Agricultural College after the summer holidays. Congratulations to Karen Birch and her team for their hard work and dedication encouraging the next generation towards a career in Agriculture and Rural Studies. Karen talked us through a power point presentation about the work they have done, and are still doing, which was inspiring and emotional and was thoroughly enjoyed by us all. This year our champions are Duns Community Nursery and Riding for Disabled Association (RDA). Nicola, Rachel and Jo collected the donation for the nursery, which is to go towards a large dining table with chairs to enable all the children to enjoy lunch together. Our donation to the RDA will be put towards the enormous amount to be raised to resurface the indoor school where all forty of the adults and children who attend benefit from working with the horses. Gill, Sharon and Sandra were there to receive the RDA donation. We wish them all the very best for the coming years and thank them for all the hard work they do in our community.’

Scotland’s Garden Scheme

What a fantastic day we had on Sunday! The promised rain held off and we had a steady stream of people wandering around town looking lost and having fun. The trail was quite spread out this year but there were plenty of parking areas marked out and lots of people took advantage of that. A big ‘thank you’ to Pearsons for allowing us to use the staff car park all afternoon – that was a great help. We’ve added a selection of pictures from the 12 gardens visited – all very different and all truly lovely. In the end we made just over £1000 which is a fantastic amount. 40% of this figure goes to Scotland’s Gardens Scheme nominated charities and 60% goes to our two charities. This year we chose Duns Community Nursery and our local Riding for Disabled Association based near Auchincrow. Two wonderful organisations doing such great work so thank you all who attended and bought tickets, I know the two charities are very grateful. We were also very honoured to have our own TV celebrity from Beechgrove Garden, George Anderson, visit a good number of gardens, and I know he and his wife had a lovely afternoon – because I asked him!

Huge ‘thank you’ to all our volunteers and, of course, to the owners who opened their gardens to allow total strangers access to what is normally their own area of escape from the world.