New planting at Palmeira Square has been unveiled – but no decision has yet been made on what to replace its floral clock with.
The square has been fenced off for more than seven months while the flower beds were reworked and replanted. It will remain closed for another few weeks to allow newly laid turf and other planting to establish itself.
Meanwhile, Brighton and Hove City Council is launching a public consultation, hopefully next month, on options to replace the clock. Depending on what is decided, it’s hoped this will be in place by the end of the year – or next spring if new planting is chosen.
Cabinet member for recreation Alan Robins visited the square to help put the last few plants in place.
He said: “What a transformation. It’s been wonderful to see the new planting scheme evolve over the past few weeks, creating a lovely and tranquil space for residents and visitors to enjoy.
“I’d like to thank members of the Friends of Palmeira Square for their continued support, from contributing to the design to getting stuck in with the planting and creating a garden to be proud of.
“This project reflects our commitment to working together to maintain and enhance green spaces for the community, while increasing biodiversity and adapting to climate change.”
The area was redesigned by the council’s Cityparks team, the Friends of Palmeira and Adelaide Partnership, guided by the 1,100 responses to a public consultation.
The council say the new planting scheme prioritises pollinator-friendly species, drought-tolerant plants and ground-cover varieties to support biodiversity and adapt to a changing climate.
The design also celebrates the original pre-1953 layout of the garden, restoring elements that reflect its historic character while introducing modern, sustainable planting.
The picture doesn’t really give any indication as to what it looks like really. All I can see is two palm trees two very uneven earth beds, a derelict mound in the middle and a load of plants lined up ready to be put somewhere. Maybe it would have been better to wait a while until all the planting had been done and the fences taken down. Either way, it will never look as resplendent as it has done in years past.
Never?
I agree, it used to be utterly stunning and the floral clock was the central masterpiece. We won’t ever see its like again. For 50 years the greenery, clock and plants gave us an absolute riot of colour and imagination. I think this change, (from what I can see), looks predictably bland and modern. I’m gutted. Why did they need to fix something that wasn’t even broken!
Totally agree as a resident of Palmeira Square
I believe the palm trees where there already!
Why plant palm? It’s England!!! We have lovely native shrubs and trees etc. Use those!!!
Please tel me that picture does not represent seven months work?!!!
Totally agree. Closed from September to April and you replant that is all??? I am a gardener and if I took that long to transform a private garden with just a few plants i would be out of a job. You should be ashamed of yourselves Hove Council
I’d like to be positive here, but that’s difficult when you see how long this project has taken – with very little work taking place over several months while the area was fenced off.
It’s also difficult to see why the changes were necessary, except to save on annual maintenance costs, and yet the amount spent on this project must be escalating in admin costs alone.
I for one won’t miss the formal flower beds or the outdated floral clock, but any replacement planting doesn’t/didn’t need to take this long.
We don’t need modern gardening ‘spin’ either – where we pretend the new planting is to attract pollinators and other wildlife, when it’s really about replacing flowers with low maintenance shrubs.
There was also talk about a new fence going up, but that doesn’t seem to have happened.
So far, this seems like one of those council projects where there’s a lot of talking but not much actual change. The token ‘consultation’ process seems equally flawed and wasteful.
Imagine how much cheaper it would have been to send in three gardeners to replant over a few days? No fencing necessary, and no fanfare.
Can’t really tell the difference. Surely consulting on the floral clock replacement should have happened at the start of the process not the end.
Once again, unorganised work taking 7 months to be completed when all it looks like, is a weeks worth of work in total done. Such a waste of taxpayers money. Not to mention the floral clock (which is a big part of the area) not even having a descion made on its upgrading.
So nice to see that the year 1953 was mentioned. As most people know the floral clock was to commemorate the Queen’s coronation and it was the very first within the UK. The labours of the Hove parks and gardens team in those days were without doubt showing what they could do. This area of Hove was a gem and certainly made the residents proud. I believe the clock should be repaired and preserved as is is Hove’s history. As a person has already mentioned deciding of what to do with the clock should have been done before the planting started. We are losing the identity of Hove’s history . Just look at what the council wants to do with the King Alfred. And look at what has been done to the Saltdean lido. We must keep our history. Let us hope our council will see sense and listen to Hove residents.
The obvious low maintenance option would be a sundial, with a seating area around it to admire the bedding.
A water feature would be nice, to drown out the traffic passing, and these are very cheap nowadays and some are solar operated.
(First choice would have been replace the Floral Clock though).
A better choice of indigenous trees could have been put in here. Palm trees will not offer shade for visitors, and are not local trees. Something like oak trees can shelter thousands of species and they have managed well in Sussex for thousands of years.
Can the clock not be repaired? I suggested the repair shop local in sussex and filmed by ricochet a local company in dyke road. Do we have to trash a memorial to QE2.
Waste of money, use your phone or a watch to tell the time
It strikes me as rather peculiar that the peripheral planting should be going ahead before the central feature has been decided on. I’m not a gardener, horticulturist, nor designer, but I’d have thought the whole thing should be one coherent concept. But if not, then the former should be designed to complement the latter.
The ongoing maintenance is the challenge there, unfortunately; it easily racks up over tens of thousands conservatively.
Interesting. Where did you get those estimates of the maintenance cost? Would that be tens of thousands annually or over a number of years?
We were talking about it a while ago when the floral clock first came up in discussion; I wanted to find out how much other places spent. East Ayrshire Council stated their clock cost in the region of £20,000 a year. It was one of the stated reasons why they decommissioned theirs.
Thanks Benjamin. Where did you find the £20,000 figure fo East Aryshire? I did a quick google and only came up with a report from 2009 that suggested a £15,000 annual cost, but that seemed to be for the whole floral clock area which included planting, lighting and several water features with jets. Did you find a source which said it was £20k just for a clock?
One of the councillors had mentioned in a meeting that £108k had been spent trying to fix the floral clock over nine years on top of maintaining the rest of it.
It was one element of a larger regeneration work, so you might find some more detailed information diving into the broader review? I appreciate a Google search isn’t bringing up a lot, so you might need to go into the council’s meetings archives.
Disappointed about lack of decision on the clock so it’s back to square 1 or a reason not to make any decision. Miss the colours of tulips and wallflowers and a few months ago daffodils. Couldn’t the community be put in charge of providing colour to the beds. The lower part of Palmeira Square is already very green. Lovely but flowers to me mean colour and having a colourful beds means a lot.
So let’s say max on plants 2/3k (and as far as I can see no where near that) and I would say 2 weeks work for a couple of gardeners, how much has it all cost ??????
Restore the floral clock as it was. Keep our heritage.
It’s been turned into a cheap easy to maintain bit of land with no colours, flowers or soul
Seven months closure and it doesn’t look any different!
Very disappointed with this but not surprised. Brighton was never very good at looking after it’s own heritage so it’s not surprising that they have such little respect for the heritage of Hove.
As to feature for the gardens, the sculpture moved from the seafront to Hove museum would be better situated here and seen by many more people.
My grandfather built the floral clock in 1953 when he worked at the council parks and gardens and it was beautiful it seems nowadays it has to be boring green everywhere and not relevant for beautiful palmeria square with its beautiful houses full of history we need colour and beauty
Many congratulations to your grandfather Elizabeth. As a young boy I used to stay with my grandparents in Adelaide Crescent and I always wanted to go to see the clock and gardens. I have even signed the petition to save the clock. What happened to that? Palmeria Square was always lovely, but looking at what they have done here looks bland. Progress! I do not think so.
There was nothing wrong with the square in fact it was one of the nicest in Brighton and Hove. The council should have done something with Grand avenue which always looks a mess alongside the ugly tower blocks.
I hope the council leave the seating as they have removed them on other projects.
Is BHCC just remarkably talented at getting ripped off or this genuinely the result of a £125k budget?
This budget was more than enough to replace and maintain our once-world famous loral Clock for the next decade, so why have they fenced off the green for so long to waste it on a feeble offering like this and taken out a lot of the grassy areas where people liked to sit?
If all this was about removing the makeshift shrine, just ban all makeshift shrines in parks which are meant to be there for everyone. Individuals or groups can sponsor a tree or bench if they want permanent markers.
I wonder who’s brother in law got the contract for that?
That photo is really sad. Appalling. 2 palms stuck in the middle of a path so you can’t walk down it. An empty mound. A lawn. What’s the point of it? No apparent design. Looks as if someone leaked the photo before any real work has been done
Should have got a five year old to design it, or did they….
In reply to Ben, I’d presumed the bit in the middle was the earth bed waiting for the few plants ranged along the grass to go in, not a path blocked by the palm tree. Maybe it is a path judging by the lack of design shown so far. I hope someone waters the plants and they aren’t just left to wither.
Lack of agriculture, lack of between ears ,it matches the state of the PAVEMENTS, it shows that there are no parks and gardens department, from the top to the bottom of this derelict councils approach to anything is chaos,confusion, mayhem no joined up thinking,it looks like a one of planting will take place so no maintenance there as per this councils mantra to everything.the only thing there Good at is they dont listen to any one outside the inner sanctum of stupidity, and silly photographs in the argos,just look at what’s going on at the moment all over the county,it strewn with uncosted works, war zone like areas ,highest places to park ,even for locals who have to tolerate this ridiculous behaviour by so called arbiters of this decimated, destroyed, slum of a place you could not hang your heads any lower in shame and what once was a centre piece of what this city was all about is gone, it was a picture of effort,pride,and and how tourists perceived this once beautiful place on the south coast
No money to fix and maintain the Floral Clock and flowerbeds, but £125k to waste on what? Fencing off a public green space for eight months to the disadvantage of locals and businesses? For the sake of underwhelming minor works a competent landscape gardening company could have achieved in a week? This is wholly unacceptable maladministration.
BHCC managed a quick turnaround with planting at the Compton Avenue ‘safer streets’ vanity project.
Is this an old photo? If it’s current why has the footpath not been replaced as it just looks really untidy, in effect just half a project botch job. Leave the Clock in place as it’s a good feature of the area when passing on a bus or in a car.
I’m guessing it was fenced off after some so called Safety Expert decided “it’s unsafe for people to go near” perhaps re doing the beds a section at a time helping train either Horticultural Students or Volunteers would have sorted this sooner with benefits and interest from locals served better.
The barricading of the square was NOT to facilitate ‘work’ it was to BLOCK Protest!
The last thing BHCC wanted was people protesting about the clock!
Seven months of closure and we still don’t even know what the centrepiece will be? That feels backwards.
I understand the shift toward lower-maintenance, climate-friendly planting, but the square’s identity mattered too — especially the floral clock. Hopefully the consultation is genuine and not just a formality, because people clearly care about what replaces it.
Hardly a transformation is it?!
That road around it, especially the one opposite the church has plenty of DEEEEEP potholes that needed more attention than the square ever needed. People pay taxes only to be spent on these ponce ideas. Fix the road. Clean up the pavements. Invest in renewable energy. Support and guidance for the homeless. Actionable plan to tackle the drug infested B&H. Not £125k for this. It could have easily been done – not just by Friends of Palmeira Square but by all volunteers wanting to take part on this. Come on council guys.
Why take away the clock? This just looks a mess. I expect if the clock was reinstated there would be enough volunteers in Hove to plant it up and keep it beautiful again!
I recall last year volunteer and community groups were approached to do that, but they had all decided it was not something viable for them to take on.
I am appalled that such little work has taken place in 7 months. Why has the whole area been blocked off with ugly fencing that was delivered from the north?
Can someone from the council disclose what the cost of the fencing was and why it was needed?
I appreciate that we don’t have the funding to restore the area to how it was and this picture is not a true reflection of how it looks now with a few added shrubs, but Local councillors please don’t treat us as idiots.
Are the council hoping that the local residents will be so grateful that the area has been opened again we won’t notice the little work that has been completed?
Spending up- front to ‘save’ money.
So garden workers’ livelihood destroyed along with what was a very pretty and colourful garden.
A systematic uglification is underway. We have already lost the pretty borders in Valley gardens to a hotch-potch of untidy weeds. Also look at what has happened to St Anne’s well garden -carved out and commercialised public space. Now also a car park for staff from the private businesses who gave moved in.
A city should be civic- for the delight and relaxation of those who live here. Many still work. Except those in the council who do not use experts to manage but hide behind ‘public ‘ consultation.
I go past there at least 3 times a week, in the last 6 months I made a point of looking to see if anyone was working on it. There NEVER was!
I think they should have a great big billboard in the middle where the clock was, saying “Hove Actually” always makes me smile when I see or hear that ..