A BRAZILIAN lady will leave a beautiful legacy for Chippenham when she leaves town.

The verges by the mini roundabouts connecting Bristol Road, Hardenhuish Lane and Hungerdown Lane are awash with colour as Heliana Boza, 45, has spent hundreds of pounds planting 1,000 daffodil and tulip bulbs.

For two months Mrs Boza, who lives in the cottage at the junction, took it upon herself to get up at dawn every Saturday and Sunday and set to work weeding, digging and planting for three hours before the traffic started to pass.

She said she wanted to get on when it was quiet because: "People would laugh and take photos and say I was mad."

Now her vivid violent, pink and white tulips have bloomed, she is getting compliments from those who realise their origin.

Town Councillor Bill Douglas said: "The whole place is looking absolutely gorgeous and it's all at her own expense."

Neighbour Mathew Hendricks-Birtles, 71, of Barley Leaze, said: "Heliana has done a fantastic job, I wish more people would take care of their area. People cannot believe it, they think it's the council. She even scrubs down the pavement."

Mrs Boza said she doesn't understand why everybody doesn't make use of the pavements where they live. At Christmas time she even put up trees by the roadside to make it sparkle.

She said: "When my husband bought that house in 2010 it looked so boring. I didn't like it. I said, I need to do something to change it. And there was rubbish all over.

"The council came to visit and said I wasn't allowed to cut the grass and I needed to buy liability insurance in case anyone tripped up. But now, they have sent me a letter congratulating me on my work."

By the end of last year the town council was giving out free bulbs to residents and encouraging them to plant them at their school, sports club or premises.

Mrs Boza has worked as a relationship counsellor but is soon moving to Folkestone in Kent because of her husband Javier's job with a pharmaceutical company.

Neighbours say she will be a missed, but the pretty perennials will be a fitting reminder of the Brazilian beauty.