A Rainy Day of Repairs, Planting, and Teamwork in Didsbury Park
Amazingly, despite it being one of the worst Monday mornings for continuous heavy rain for a long time, nevertheless, we still had a fabulous turnout of 38 volunteers working in the park this morning.
Whilst not surprisingly the weather forecast put off a number of our regular volunteers we were boosted by two teams of volunteers from NatWest. Picture 1 shows the 20 volunteers from the 2 NatWest teams posing for a picture at our coffee break and picture 2 shows Aristhote from Clayton College and his job carer Lisha, ready to do another great litter pick across the park.
A huge thank you to everybody who braved the elements and who turned up to volunteer with us today. Everyone was made very welcome.
REPAIRS DAY
Lawn Mower: During the last few weeks one of our lawnmowers has been off-site being repaired by Geoff. After diagnosing the problem, Geoff then fixed it by installing a new carburetor. It was a pleasure therefore to see it being returned in tip top condition once again by Denise first thing this morning. Picture 3 shows Denise returning with the mower. Thank you both Geoff and Denise - This is a great result!
Wooden Bench: Due to some ongoing concerns about the robustness of the latest wooden bench we had installed in the park, the decision was made last week to return it to the supplier for reconstruction. So today the core "heavy gang" team of Steve and Gary set about the task of removing the concreted anchors from the bench. Once removed this then enabled us to store the bench in the volunteers shelter ready for transportation back to the supplier later this week. Picture 4 shows Steve in the process of removing one of the anchors. Thank you guys.
Chain Fencing: Following the success with de-installing the wooden bench, Gary and Steve moved on to repair one of the posts in the chain fencing near the roundabout. The post in question looked as though it had been accidentally knocked by a vehicle and was loose in its concrete foundation. Gary and Steve did a great job in re-setting the post. Thank you once again guys - what a tremendously productive morning despite the rain! Thank you both.
Broken Net Supports for the Football Goals: As a result of some recent anti-social behaviour and vandalism, 3 out of 4 of the metal supports for the football nets have now been snapped off the football goals. As a result, I am delighted to report that Tom came along today to examine the damage and investigate whether the broken supports can be repaired. Tom has taken one of the broken supports away to investigate further. Thank you Tom - this is appreciated.
HORTICULTURAL REPORT
More plants for the Flower Walk: It s always an exciting time when Diane arrives with her bags full of new plants for the park. In Diane's bag today we had viburnum borealis, nigella seeds, sweet rocket and honesty. These were dutifully planted around the Flower Walk and the rockery. It is amazing to see our stock of diverse plants growing steadily on the Flower Walk. Thank you Diane.
DIB Village Planters: It is that time of year again when we will soon be receiving the MCC winter plants. So also will all the Didsbury in Bloom teams who look after the "planters" in the village. As in previous years, today we again ventured outside our Didsbury Park boundaries to help the DIB teams to empty the current planters throughout the village, ready for the new plants to be planted. Any of the existing plants which were considered to be good enough to last a bit longer were saved for re-planting in the park and the others went into our compost bays.
Picture 5 shows Alison from DIB with the 8 volunteers from NatWest who very efficiently emptied all the planters in the village under Alison's direction. The team had successfully finished this task just before our coffee break. Thank you everyone this was a superb effort and much appreciated.
Another Cyclamen and Dianthus Windfall - Flower Bed Adjacent to the Bird Garden: For the third weekend in a row we were offered more end of range cyclamen and dianthus plants as 'excess to requirements' from a leading UK supermarket. Thanks to a some very generous support once again from Allan, he and I were able to travel with 2 cars to Trafford Park on Saturday morning and return with both cars full of plants ready for adding lots more colour to the park. As a result, this morning, a FoDP team consisting of Christine, Tristan, Greg and John took multiple wheelbarrows full of these plants and planted them in the flower bed alongside the Bird Garden. They certainly added lots of bright colour. This was a great job everyone - thank you all.
Another Cyclamen and Dianthus Windfall - Poppy Path: After the coffee break, the NatWest team who had returned from emptying the planters in the village, loaded up their wheelbarrows with cyclamen and started to create a beautiful cyclamen flower bed around the Poppy Path street sign on the Poppy Path. This is part of smartening up this whole area for the Act of Remembrance on Saturday 9th November at 11am. Thank you all - this area has been transformed.
Wild Flower Meadow Project - Clearing the old cuttings
Following the super work which Allan undertook in strimming the whole of the wild flower meadow during the last few weeks - it was time today to clear the meadow of all the cut down material. Under Kevin O's careful direction a large team of volunteers set about clearing the meadow of all the cut down flowers and grasses.
Picture 6 shows the team collecting the larger cuttings from the centre of the meadow (Kevin is at the back of the picture on the left hand side). The large thick stemmed cuttings went into the skip but the smaller softer cuttings were added to the compost bays. Picture 7 shows some of the larger cuttings on their way to the skip. The clearing of the wild flower meadow was a huge task today and one more step towards the carefully planned recovery of the wild flower meadow. Thank you to everyone who worked really hard on this big task today - especially Kevin.
Rose Beds and Gillbrook Road
Picture 8 shows Denise and Brenda pausing for a quick chat as they delivered their green waste to the skip. Denise had been doing some maintenance and tidying up in the rose beds and Brenda had been tidying up by Gillbrook Road.
Excellent work ladies - thank you. Speaking of Brenda we also had a visit from Brenda D from Friends of Fletcher Moss today as she returned our pallet truck which she had borrowed from us last week. We were glad to be of help!
Plans for the Path to the Wilmslow Road Gate
During this last week Ilma has been working hard on outlining some horticultural suggestions to improve the design of the flower beds along the path from the Wilmslow Road gate. These initial suggestions are being well received and so today Ilma spent more time evaluating this area in more detail. Thank you Ilma this is a great initiative.
PATH EDGING
Following our success of using drainage gravel to edge the path near the rose beds it was decided today to tackle the edging along the path in front of the Flower Walk.
Picture 9 shows four members of the NatWest team with wheelbarrows full of drainage gravel ready to start this stretch of path. Thank you for doing this great piece of work.
A VERY WET DAY!!!
Just reading about the huge amount of work which we completed today it is hard to imagine that most of it was carried out in a continuous deluge of water. It is only when faced with the challenge at "home time" of the many pairs of soaking wet gloves and hi-vis vests that the reality hits home.
I think picture 10 perfectly captures the challenge of drying out all the gloves, hi-vis vests and tools at the end of the morning!
Finally it was good to welcome Gill N back to the team today after her recent illness, we would like to wish Robin a speedy recovery and I would like to thank Lucy for her great help with collecting and storing all the wet tools at the end of today's session.
Thank you once again for your amazing support.