By contrast with last week's Monday morning deluge, we were relieved to have a mainly dry and partially sunny morning to volunteer in today.

As a result, we had another amazing turnout of 49 volunteers who were very busy working throughout the park. Our volunteers today included Ellie, Emily, Vicky, Jenny and Michelle from Carrier Ltd (see picture 1) and Georgios, James and Maria from Network Rail. It was also great to see Sandra, Ilma and Sonia putting in appearances despite current knee problems and as always it was a pleasure to see Grace joining us once again.

We were also pleasantly surprised today to be joined by Ilma's son Michael who helped with some planting. Everybody was made very welcome.

The Heavy Gang Turnout in Force

It was one of those days today when we had almost the full complement of heavy gang members in attendance.

Picture 2 shows the team of Gary, Carl N, Murray, Adrian, Richard and Steve posing for a picture in front of the owl carving where they were all working on re-enforcing and re-styling the steps up to the carving. Picture 3 shows the resultant new second step completely re-styled and rebuilt using granite sets. This was a great piece of work - literally a case of one step at a time. Well done guys. Thank you all!

The Wildflower Meadow Recovery Programme

Following the erroneous sowing of meadow grass seed in the wild flower meadow a couple of seasons ago, today was another stage in the rescue programme to eradicate the dominant grasses and re-introduce more wildflowers. During the last few weeks we have strimmed and removed the old wildflower growth and today it was time to start sowing some yellow rattle seeds. This was the first of two planned stages to introduce yellow rattle. It is planned to sow yellow rattle seeds this autumn and then at a later stage in spring to plant some further yellow rattle plugs.

Picture 4 shows the large team consisting of Stephen, plus all the volunteers from Network Rail and Carrier's, under Kevin O's careful supervision, as they began scratching the surface of the meadow alongside the grasses and carefully planting yellow rattle seeds. Kevin is demonstrating what to do with the seeds in the picture.

Thank you everyone - this was a huge task which covered a large area of the whole meadow. Fingers crossed that all these seeds now do their job!

Lots of New Planting Across The Whole Park

• 2 New Roses: Thanks to a generous donation of two large mature red rose bushes (Gallica Officinalis and Tuscan Superb,) from Pauline we were able to put the finishing touches to the triangular rose bed today. Firstly Denise and Louise prepared the flower bed by weeding and tidying it and then Jude, Julie, Ilma, Michael and Lucy, planted the new roses. They look great in their new home. Thank you everyone.

• Cyclamen and Dianthus: There were lots of activities today involving the continuation of planting of the windfall cyclamen and dianthus plants we received from the 'end of line' classification by UK supermarkets. Picture 5 shows Wendy and Gill B collecting a selection of these plants to be planted in the Bird Garden. Gill and Wendy were later joined by Joyce to help add these colourful plants into the Bird Garden. Thank you Wendy, Gill and Joyce. This was a great piece of work.

• Cyclamen, Dianthus and other plants: Picture 6 shows the team of Sonia, Lesley, Anne, Grace, Debbie and Myro working hard to plant a load of new colourful plants around Buddy & Lucy. Not only did this large team add more cyclamens and dianthus but they also managed to recycle many of the plants (in the wheelbarrow) retrieved from the planters in the village last week. These flower beds looked amazing afterwards - thank you all!

• Cyclamen: Picture 7 shows Tristan posing for a photograph amongst the many cyclamen which have been beautifully planted in the flower beds alongside the Bird Garden. Thanks also to the work done here assisted by Christine last week this area is a real pleasure to walk along. Thank you Tristan and Christine. Great work!

• New perennials for the Flower Walk: Thanks once again to Diane's generosity we were able to add a number of new perennials including crocosmia, into the Flower Walk today. Picture 8 shows Julie, Diane and Lucy inspecting the Flower Walk following the planting. Thank you - this area is looking really attractive.

• Rose beds: Picture 9 shows the team of Anne, Lesley, Denise and Louise posing for a picture as they admire the super maintenance & tidy up job they have just undertaken on one of the rose beds. This is now looking great for some additional planting next week - thank you all

• Gillbrook Road flower beds: Thanks also to Robin who, working with Brenda, set about weeding and maintaining the flower bed area stretching from Gillbrook Road to the rockery. This area had not received much attention recently so was a hard piece of work to undertake. Thank you for the super thorough job you did here Robin.

Dedication and Commitment to the Cause!

As autumn approaches, the none evergreen hedging around the Bird Garden starts to die back and it exposes more potential gaps in the hedge for the more inquisitive of the dogs to squeeze through into the Bird Garden where they are not allowed. However as they search for newer ways to get in, we totally rely on one dedicated volunteer to stay one step ahead of them.

We are so lucky to have Roger in our team. Roger not only constantly fixes any gaps in the hedge but thoroughly tests the integrity of the hedge by bringing his own dog along to test it as well. Picture 10 taken this morning shows Roger blocking up another potential gap in the Bird Garden hedge! This is amazing work Roger - thank you!   

Path Transformation

As the leaves start to fall earlier this year than in recent years we are having to start earlier on our seasonal work to keep the paths safe and clear from wet slippy leaves. We started in earnest today:

• Christine, Carl M and Greg did a superb job in removing the leaves from along the main path between the Sandhurst Road double gate and the Gillbrook Road gate. Thank you - this looked great after you had all finished!

• The Network Rail team did an amazing transformation of the long path leading to the Wilmslow Road gate - even staying on doing overtime until 1:30pm in order to complete the whole path. Thank you.

• Brenda soon had the Gillbrook Road entrance looking pristine once more . Well done Brenda.

• Allan removed all the leaves from the drainage channels near where the old compost bays used to be. Thank you Allan - great job

A big thanks also to Tom who not only tidied up the bottom of the Poppy Path but also worked during the week to produce a repair to one of the supporting brackets on one of the goal posts.

This is an amazing remedial piece of work - thank you Tom once again for your ingenuity!

Quick Maintenance Rescue Job

Finally a big thank you to Geoff today for rapidly mending and sharpening a pair of hedge trimmers which broke during the morning. Excellent support. Thank you!

Upcoming Events:

Saturday 2nd November: The Big Leaf Clear Up

Didsbury Park, 10am–1:30pm. All members of the public are welcome especially families. Please spread the word. We will also have a gazebo and stand provided by the RSPB who will be promoting information about wildlife and Didsbury Park. It should be interesting.

Saturday 9th November: Poppy Path – Act of Remembrance

On the Poppy Path - starts promptly with the Last Post played by the bugler at 11am. Please arrive by 10:50. Teas and coffees provided afterwards in the Didsbury Park cafe.

Thursday 21st November: Curry Night Social

Sangam Didsbury at 7pm - the numbers are starting to grow quite quickly now as we are approaching 30 attendees. Please do let me know if you would like to attend either singly or with a partner.

Thank you once again for your amazing support!