It’s bloomin’ lovely at the Olympic Park

All, as the 2012 chiefs keep telling us, is bloomin’ wonderful at the Olympic Park.

And it really is, as these latest images are showing the Stratford site bursting into life this spring with rows of blossoming Wild Cherry trees and lush green lawns in the completed wetland bowl.

And work is well underway to create around 250 acres of new parklands, on former industrial land, to create a colourful and festival atmosphere for the tens of thousands that will be heading for the Games next year and for decades to come.

Tree-lined footpaths

Over 1,500 trees have been planted along with thousands of wetlands plants in the north of the park along with 15,000 square metres of riverside spectator lawns, timber furniture, frog ponds, woodlands and tree-lined footpaths.

Denis Hone. Chief Executive of the Olympic Delivery Authority, said: “The Olympic Park parklands are in blossom and on track to be great new open space during the Games and in legacy. The riverside lawns, meadows, wooded hills and wetlands will help create a colourful festival atmosphere in London 2012 and become an important part of the regeneration of this part of east London after the Games.”

More than ten football fields worth of nectar-rich annual and perennial meadows have been designed and sown to flower during the Games while wetland bowls and new woodlands have created habitats for species including otter, heron, bat lizard and toads, eels water vole and insects.

Thousands of the 300,000 wetland plants have already been planted with over 30 species of native reeds, rushes, grasses, sedges, wildflowers and irises, with around a third grown from cuttings and seeds.

The riverside London 2012 Garden which will stretch for half a mile between the Aquatics Centre and Olympic Stadium on land that has been cleaned and cleared of railway sidings, contamination and Japanese Knotweed.

When finished the garden will celebrate centuries of British passion for gardens, with picnic lawns, timber seating and 120,000 plants from 250 different species across the world arranged into four temperate regions: Europe, Americas, Asia and the Southern Hemisphere. It will also boast two amateur gardeners who have helped to design after their competition entries won a public vote. And there will be four football fields’ of secure, accessible allotments.