Eastleigh Scouts have arrived at their headquarters building to find their gardening efforts ruined by local vandals.
The young people of the 4th Eastleigh Scout Group which meet in Southampton Road in Eastleigh decided to try and help the bee population of the town after adopting a bee as their mascot last November, by planting a small garden outside of their headquarters with plants that attract bees and by making and erecting bee houses.
Although the building is in the town centre (near the old railway works) and only ground is a small walk way on two sides of the building, it was decided to utilise this area by planting a small garden for each of the three sections in containers on the back walkway, and put up bee houses and bird feeding boxes onto the building wall.
All the young people aged from six to 14 years, contributed their small change from their pocket money to buy the containers, soil, plants and seeds, and put it all together in May. The Scout Group which is part of the Eastleigh Scout District decided to dedicate the garden as a centenary garden in honour of the District’s 100 years of Scouting in the Town since August 1909, and hoped that it would be fully established by the time the Group celebrate their 90th birthday next autumn.
So it was with much dismay that Scouts arriving over the weekend for an activity were met with the results of some vandals who had ripped out plants, broken off the stems of larger plants, broken containers and the bird feeding boxes.
It was always a chance that this would happen, but a bit of shock to have happened so soon, and now the leaders will have the task of explaining to the younger members of the group why some people decide to ruin efforts of others.
All will not be lost, as the Scouts will not let the vandals win, and will repair what they can and save more money to replace what is broken, and buy more plants and seeds.
