Sunny Days, New Faces & Big Progress in Didsbury Park
TODAY
On a beautiful sunny morning today we had a very good turnout of 35 volunteers which included Neil and Maryam, who were 2 new local volunteers, and Abigail from Autotrader. It was also great to see Myra returning after a winter break. In addition we also had 2 guest volunteers from MCC. Amelia from MCC Parks Marketing and Leah from MCC Corporate Marketing who joined us today to take photos and videos of us at work and to conduct some volunteer interviews in preparation for publicity about MCC Volunteer's Week at the beginning of June. Everybody was made very welcome.
Picture 1 shows Amelia and Leah posing for a photograph in the sunshine.
TODAY - WATERING, WEEDING AND PLANTING - WILMSLOW ROAD GATE AREA
Like most gardens and parks at the moment, as the spring flowers die away, they are suddenly being replaced with an abundance of weeds. Not surprisingly then, one of our main priorities today was to remove as many weeds as possible, to enable the perennials and the new summer plants to be given a chance to thrive. One of our priority weeding areas this morning was the area around the Wilmslow Road entrance.
Picture 2 shows Carl M, Lucy, Jude and Julie working at the top end of the 'oasis garden', while picture 3 taken at the bottom of the 'oasis garden' shows Jane and John in the foreground, Lorna positioned just behind and concentrating on watering, and Tristan and Julie in the background. This team were later joined by Ilma. Once this area had received a thorough weeding the team then planted some large ferns and persicaria in it. This was an incredible improvement.
Just across the path we had another team of Caroline, Wendy and Myra who also did a fantastic job weeding the opposite flower bed. Picture 4 shows Caroline and Wendy working hard to prepare the flower bed ready to plant the new aruncus plants.
A huge thank you to everybody involved in this excellent piece of work. Especial thanks must also go to Kevin and Jan for obtaining all these new plants as a donation from Maggies and to Allan who made sure that the plants were watered every other day in order to keep them healthy. Thank you.
TODAY - WATERING, AND WEEDING - ROSE BEDS
Picture 5 shows Denise and Louise working hard to weed and water the beautiful rose bed next to the volunteers' shelter.
The picture also shows Leah, one of our guests from MCC, also joining in to lend us a hand. It is just such a compulsive thing to do, especially when the results look so fantastic. Thank you all.
TODAY - REDESIGNING THE NEW FLOWER BED
You may recall that last week, thanks to some great help from Geoff and his mechanical digger, we created a totally new flower bed in the Buddy and Lucy area. Following a week, when we allowed it to lie fallow, we returned this week to improve the shape of the bed and remove any remaining weeds.
Picture 6 shows the team of Sonia, Allan, Abigail, Chris, Katie, Maryam and Thanh, who used some pieces of turf from the edges of the wild flower meadow in order to achieve the new required shape. Thank you all - this was a great result.
TODAY - GREAT EXCITEMENT ABOUT THE WILD FLOWER MEADOW FENCING PROJECT
After many years of trying to obtain funding to do the necessary work to enable us to open up the wild flower meadow to the public, we received the amazing news this week that our joint grant application with MCC for the award of the necessary budget has been provisionally accepted - subject only now to some contractual negotiations.
The whole team has been absolutely thrilled with this major step forward and today it gave us some significant impetus to get on with maintenance activities on the wild flower meadow to make it look as good as it can be. So this morning Shashvat, Allan and Maryam began weeding under the surrounding hedging and under the benches in the wild flower meadow Picture 7 shows Maryam clearing weeds from under the hedges. This was a great start every one - thank you.
TODAY - ELSEWHERE IN THE PARK
- Picture 8 shows Brenda once again doing a splendid job in tidying up the Gillbrook Road entrance and making this busy entrance an attractive one to the park.
-Picture 9 shows Carl N, taking advantage of the dry weather to do a superb maintenance job of clearing out the drains around the roundabout. The picture shows the bucket containing a large amount of detritus recovered from the drain. Interestingly this green waste contained many worms and so was ideal for the compost bays. Thank you Carl. Great job!
-Picture 10 captures some of the work being undertaken on one of our other significant initiatives. The picture captures Kevin and Greg indulging themselves in a project to create a state of the art 'bug hotel'. The sturdy construction highlighted on the pallet truck in the picture is on its way to the selected woodland location where its pitched roof, interior rooms and hotel sign will be later added. Watch this space!
-Disappointedly we had some minor vandalism this week when the lock and the perspex cover were stolen from the lectern near the Sandhurst Road entrance. So first thing this morning Jane recovered another perspex sheet from elsewhere in the park and with a new lock returned the lectern back to full working order again. A huge thank you Jane.
-Thank you to Gill N and Grace for refilling all the free doggy bag dispensers at each of the park entrances. A great job.
-|Thank you also to Tom for mowing the bottom section of the Poppy Path and keeping this whole area under control and useable by the public. Thank you.
COMING UP
- On Friday (16th May) we will be visited by a large team from PWC who are coming to do an additional day of volunteering with us. We have a good management cover for the day with Sonia, Allan and myself BUT if you have any spare time and would like to come along you will be made very welcome.
- On Sunday (18th May) there is a special Civic Service at Manchester Cathedral to welcome the incoming Lord Mayor
- I understand that a number of our volunteers and members are interested in what is happening with Ryebank Field. I have been sent this link to a short questionaire on the subject https://ryebankfieldscommunity.co.uk/ If you are interested you may wish to fill it in.
FINALLY - A HUGE THANK YOU TO BRIAN
Didsbury Park has been amazingly popular during the recent hot weather - to the extent that it was very hard to find a space in the park at the weekend. As a result when I came into the park at 8:30am this morning there was not a single litter bin that had not overflowed onto the ground around it. Shortly afterwards Brian from MCC arrived in his truck and then just dedicated himself to clearing every single bit of it up. We are so grateful that we have such a dedicated and hard working MCC worker and on behalf of everybody who uses Didsbury Park I would like to say a huge thank you to Brian!!
Thank you once again for your amazing support.