09/08/13 ***FAO JANET TOMLINSON*** Dusty Beesley, 83, waters a giant hanging basket, which he believes is the largest in Britain - perhaps the W
09/08/13 ***FAO JANET TOMLINSON*** Dusty Beesley, 83, waters a giant hanging basket, which he believes is the largest in Britain - perhaps the World. Weighing-in at a colossal six tons and with a circumference of 17 feet, the hanging basket is crammed full of more than 2,500 plants. Dusty, first planted the oversized pot 11 years ago: "It was a commemorative thing to start with - I put it up to celebrate our golden wedding anniversary, the Queen's Jubilee and to mark 50 fifty years running our garden centre" "Since then we add more each year. This year's proper summer weather has made it look better than ever. We've raised £17,000 for charity over the years. At the moment we're supporting Prost-Aid - so the more publicity we get, the more chaps we might help. "It's too heavy to move so in the winter we turn it into a huge Christmas decoration. "The plants are mainly begonias, lobelias, geraniums and petunia surfinias. Fifty years ago people would only put two or tree plants in hanging baskets - today's armoury is much bigger so we try and put a few more modern varieties in to give our customers some inspiration - there's gold hob growing along the chains." Dusty, who runs Beesleys Garden Centre with his family in Ravenstone, near Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire believes his hanging basket is the biggest in Britain. "There's one listed in The Guinness World record book that's in Ghent, in Belgium. But that's not actually hanging like ours - so I think ours really is, the largest hanging basket" All Rights Reserved - F Stop Press +44 (0) 1335 300098
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Photo credit: © Rod Kirkpatrick / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
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Keywords: basket, baskets, biggest, fsp, fstoppress, hanging, largest, press, stop
