A Joyful Day of Volunteering, Treats and Teamwork in Didsbury Park

TODAY

We had a great turnout of 42 volunteers working in the park this morning, in some lovely dry and at times sunny conditions. We also took advantage today of receiving a small grant from the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust's "Activity for Happiness Fund" to treat all our volunteers to some early lunchtime  "party food". This whole event went without a hitch thanks to some great organisation by Gill N with help from Sonia and Emma and the excellent catering provided by Jo and her team in the cafe. There was clearly a lot of happiness being had by everybody this morning as we enjoyed the delicious chicken drumsticks, sausage rolls, sandwiches, cakes etc etc,  

Picture 1 captures the scene as our volunteers tuck into this lovely treat. A huge thank you from all our volunteers to Gill and Jo for making this such a great success!!

In addition to our regular volunteers today we also had guest volunteers: Hannah and her 6 colleagues from the pension department of Gallagher Benefit Services; Danny from Autotrader and local volunteer Eunice who joined us to do a great litter pick right across the park. Everybody was made very welcome.

Picture 2 shows the team from Gallagher's standing under the beautiful white cherry blossom tree which has been a star attraction in the park for about a week with many hundreds of visitors coming from near and far to picnic under and photograph this stunning tree! 

TODAY - DELIVERY OF NEW LARGE FERNS FROM MAGGIES

Thank you to Kevin for arranging for several wheel barrow loads of excess large ferns to be collected from Maggies earlier this week.  Picture 3 shows Kevin and Jude, escorted by Ilma, as they transfer the ferns to the woodland area for planting next week. Thank you all.

TODAY - FIRST STAGE OF THE PLAN TO REMOVE LARGE LAUREL BUSHES 

Picture 4 shows the team of Shashvat, Wahid, Sonia, Chris and Meryl undertaking the first part of the plan to remove the large overpowering laurel hedging near Buddy and Lucy. These laurel bushes were heavily pruned today prior to their planned removal in May, once the spring bulbs surrounding them have died back.  

Thank you all - this area is already looking so much better and will be better still when we can make it a colourful perennial border later this year.  

TODAY - PLANTING HAWTHORN WHIPS, FATSIA SPIDERS WEB PLANTS AND A TEASEL.

Earlier this week, thanks to Will White from MCC, we had a delivery of a good supply of hawthorn whips for planting under the tree canopy where the old compost bays used to be. So this morning Jude, Anne, Wendy, Carl, Tristan, and Gill B, set about planting these rather spiky plants in the designated area. Thank you everyone - selecting the right plants for this area has taken a long time but hopefully these will now grow successfully here where other plants would have failed.  

Last Monday Jude delivered a couple of Fatsia spiders web plants for adding to the new plants we have been introducing to the re-designed horticultural area near the Wilmslow Road gate. So today Jude was able to plant these in the appropriate locations. Thank you Jude. 

This morning we not only had a donation of a healthy teasel plant from David Sweet but David also kindly planted it for us in the wilding woodland area. Thank you David - this is much appreciated.

Picture 5 shows the natural hedging being constructed by Kevin, Katie and Sandra to provide a natural habitat for all sorts of insects and animals in this wilding area. Lorna was also helping this team but was out of camera shot. Thank you all this whole area is developing very nicely.

TODAY - FENCING AND BENCH MAINTENANCE 

The programme of maintenance and repair of kick fencing and wooden benches continued at pace today. Picture 6 shows Murray, Adrian and Carl N continuing to identify and remove rotting sections of kick fencing from the oldest section of kick fencing in the park. This work is really impressive and continues to make great progress.

 Catching up swiftly from behind is the team of Charlie and Rebecca who are painting preservative on both the old and the replaced sections of this same kick fencing. Picture 7 shows Rebecca painting the preservative, not far away from Carl, Murray and Adrian in the background.

Picture 8 shows Emily and Holly from Gallagher's and Danny from Autotrader doing a super maintenance job on Joe's bench along the Flower Walk. Having made such a good job of this bench, the team then went on to do a similar job on one of the benches on the wild flower meadow. Thank you guys - this work really made a huge difference. 

TODAY - A BATTLE OF WITS - ROGER VERSUS SADIE

It was great to see Roger back with us today and bringing more hedge repair equipment in order to continue his marathon project of repairing holes in the hedging around the Bird Garden to keep dogs out, so that families with young children and toddlers can safely let them play / picnic on the grass, in a clean dog poo free environment and without being disturbed by dogs off the lead.

Picture 9 shows Roger with his own special test dog Sadie in a continuous battle of wits, with Sadie, who sees it as a great game to find another weakness in the fencing!  You deserve a medal for your patience and perseverance Roger - A huge thank you!

TODAY - ONE OF TODAY'S BIG PROJECTS - SOAK_AWAY DRAINAGE ALONG PATH EDGES

With the delivery of another tonne bag of gravel, funded by FoDP, earlier this week,  the majority of the Gallagher team of volunteers, led by Allen, undertook a big project to continue the introduction of soak-away drainage channels alongside the Flower Walk and around the corner to the DNC.

Picture 10 shows 3 of the 6 man team doing this job. By the end of the morning the team had worked incredibly hard and used up the whole supply of gravel. Thank you everyone. This was a great job.  

ELSEWHERE IN THE PARK

- Brenda did an amazing tidy up around the Gillbrook Road entrance - thank you Brenda

-As a precaution, Joyce added some further cage protection to a few vulnerable trees around the park - thank you Joyce

-Lesley did a super edging job on the flower bed next to the shelter - well done Lesley

-John and Lesley Mc continued to make some great progress in removing ground elder in some designated areas of the Flower Walk - thank you both - this is a very necessary task.

-Thank you once again to Eunice who did a brilliant litter pick right across the park as there were a lot of overspilling bins after the heavy footfall in the park over the weekend. Her large bag was absolutely full when she had finished. 

Finally once again, thank you for your amazing support - it is really appreciated.