Lord Mayor to Open Didsbury Park Wild Flower Meadow
BREAKING NEWS - THE FORMAL OPENING OF THE WILD FLOWER MEADOW BY THE LORD MAYOR WILL BE ON 29TH JUNE
I am delighted to be able to announce that Cllr Shaukat Ali, the Lord Mayor of Manchester, has accepted our invitation to come to Didsbury Park on Monday 29th June to formally open the wild flower meadow. The Lord Mayor will also be accompanied by Cllr Basat Sheik the Executive Member for Neighbourhoods (which includes parks).
The plan for the morning is that we will work in the park as normal from 09:30 and then all assemble in the wild flower by 11:00 ready for the Lord Mayor and Cllr Basat Sheik to arrive. Dress code will be hi-vis.
After 5 years of hard work with the support of MCC, the wild flower meadow is now looking quite stunning again and so let's all keep our fingers crossed that it continues to bloom throughout the month until the 29th June.
We also hope to be joined by our colleagues in MCC Parks and our local councillors to celebrate this great achievement and yes of course there will be cake!
TODAY
Despite the weather being overcast with a promise of some heavy showers forecast today we still had a very good turnout of 43 volunteers in the park this morning. We were pleased to welcome Desmond, Daniel and Miranda, as 3 new local volunteers, as well as 11 volunteers from Element Materials Technology for the first time.
Our team from Brentwood College were unfortunately not able to attend today but we did have participation from Shigad and Sheeba from Bridge College who like Winne and her dad Andrew did a great litter pick throughout the park. Everybody was made very welcome.
TODAY - LET'S GET THE WILD FLOWER MEADOW READY
With the formal opening only a few weeks away, there was a lot of emphasis today on tidying up the hedging areas around the wild flower meadow, to make sure it looks at its best for the end of the month.
Picture 1 shows our new recruit Desmond posing for a photo in front of the superb job he had done removing any weeds edging the outside of wild flower meadow.
Picture 2 shows a picture of Felix, Patrick and Taylan working on the inside of the railings as they weeded the hedging around the borders of the wild flower meadow (Desmond is looking on from outside). Also working in the wild flower meadow today were Miranda, Chris and Ilma who not only tidied up the flower beds under the hedges but they also made a major improvement to the new flower bed in the corner of the wild flower meadow. This corner flower bed was significantly re-shaped and weeded - further planting work will continue next week. A huge thank you from me for this superb work undertaken today.
We also welcomed Paul from MCC today who worked skilfully to repair the tap on the wildflower meadow which has been out of action since the winter due to a major leak of gushing water whenever we have tried to use it. Paul provided all the plumbing expertise and Allan will finally complete the rebuilding of the tap housing unit during this week. We are now somewhat vulnerable to this tap being abused as the 2 locks for the tap have disappeared during the festival weekend.
Many Happy Returns to Carl N on his birthday today and our best wishes for a speedy recovery to Prof Steve who has broken his foot.
With many of our regular volunteers on holiday today, it was Christine who came to our rescue and organised our coffee break for the 40+ of us today. Both Jo from the cafe and I thought you did an amazing job Christine. The order was in nice and early and everything went like clockwork. Thank you so much.
TODAY - STILL LOTS OF SUMMER BEDDING PLANTS TO BE PLANTED
Another of our top priorities today involved the challenge of planting the remainder of last week's delivery of bedding plants.
Sadly, for the second year running we were once again faced with the problem of many of the plants we planted last week in the flower beds near the volunteers shelter being stolen. So, one of our first jobs today was to replant these beds with replacement plants. We did have lots of help including a special request from young Millie to help! Picture 3 shows Millie being instructed by Denise on how to plant her first ever begonia. Great work!
Over by the rockery Tristan was busy planting trailing fuchsia. Along the path to Wilmslow Road a combined team of volunteers from Elements and our regular volunteers, planted a selection of begonias, geraniums and snapdragons. Picture 4 shows Kiwi, Julie, Jude and one of our volunteers from Elements standing among the newly planted begonias and with a wheelbarrow full of snapdragons waiting to be planted by the entrance. Thank you.
Picture 5 shows two of the Elements volunteers who had also been working with the team on the Wilmslow Road path as they returned to the green waste skip with lots of weeds. Thank you.
The teams working on the wildflower meadow also planted lots of geraniums around the hedging areas near the railings. Today was a brilliant effort by so many volunteers to plant up as many summer bedding plants as possible through the park. A huge thank you for this mammoth task!
TODAY - THE FLOWER WALK ROSES JUST GET BETTER EVERY YEAR
It is really lovely to see how the special roses we bought for the Flower Walk some years ago have finally established themselves this year. In fact, so much so, that today Joyce had to undertake a major piece of staking work to provide support for the stunning large red flowers.
Picture 6 shows Kiwi and Tristan standing in front of this very colourful display. Well done Joyce - this is really showing them off at their best.
TODAY - CLEANING UP THE PATHS
As can be seen from picture 7, there were a lot of Elements volunteers, plus Allan and Brenda cleaning up the paths around the rear of the cafe, Gillbrook Road entrance and the roundabout today and what a huge improvement it made. Thank you all.
In addition, the volunteers doing the litter picking were impressed with how litter free the park had been left after the festival. See picture 8 where Winnie and Andrew were struggling to fill their bag. Thank you.
TODAY - LAWNMOWERS IN ACTION
A big thank you to Geoff today for sorting out our initial problems with starting the sit on lawn mower. You are definitely right Geoff - it does go better with petrol in it!
Meanwhile our two hand mowers were busy all morning. Now that the MCC large mower is having difficulty cutting the grass under the large trees with low hanging branches, Steve is following up by using the hand mower on the parts missed near the trees. Today Steve did an amazing job as all the cherry trees along the avenue at the top of the park needed mowing around their bases. This was a big job and we would like to say a huge thank you Steve!
Gary was in charge of the other mower as he once again did a great job mowing and repainting the cricket square. Thank you Gary.
Picture 9 captures Steve and Gary having an earnest conversation about the intricacies of mowing!!
TODAY - ELSEWHERE IN THE PARK
We are a very fortunate group in that we have a lot of knowledge and experience amongst our team of volunteers. Some of this is captured in Picture 10 where Ilma and Robin are having an extra 5 minutes at the end of our coffee break. Thank you both for all your commitment and support. It is appreciated!
We have had an ongoing safety problem in the park for several months now associated with raised paving at the Gillbrook Road entrance caused by the tree roots of the large tree at the entrance. Today we worked with Tony from MCC to lift (and store) the paving so that the MCC arbor team can shave off enough of the root to remove the problem. Once the arbor team have cut the root then the plan is to replace the paving. Thanks Tony.
Thank you also to Richard and Carl N for continuing to undertake weekly maintenance work on the goal nets on both sets of pitches. These are very much appreciated by the young footballers - and their dad's !
Finally thank you all once again for your amazing support.