TODAY

Out came the sun today, and so also did a great number of volunteers - in fact, 37 in total.

Picture 1 shows Dario with sons Alexander and Sebastian doing a thorough litter pick in the park, as did Will who today also reported doing many hours of additional litter picking throughout the week. In addition, it was great to see Laurent (our ex Duke of Edinburgh Awards volunteer) back with us once more - especially as he also brought along his Mum, Marie-Claude to volunteer too. (See Picture 2)

Thank you all. Our volunteers today also included 9 young volunteers from NatWest. Everybody was made very welcome.

NATWEST VOLUNTEERS ACTIVITIES

The NatWest team arrived early and under Allan's supervision immediately set about planting 13 large pyracantha plants along the boundary of the park with the Elm Road neighbours rear gardens.

These plants were supplied by MCC as part of our joint campaign with MCC against Anti Social Behaviour in that area of the park. It is hoped that these large prickly plants will give further protection to the neighbouring houses in this area.

Picture 3 shows members of the NatWest team collecting about half of the large plants ready for planting.

Once all 13 of the new large pyracantha plants had been successfully planted, then Allan and the NatWest volunteers joined Joyce and Wendy and other NatWest volunteers who had already started painting preservative paint on the kick fencing along the path from the Wilmslow Road gate. Picture 4 shows most of the NatWest volunteers mid project, with Allan and Joyce. I am delighted to report that the team managed to complete painting the whole length of kick fencing by the end of the morning. A great achievement - thank you!

One of the other NatWest volunteers helped Carl M, Laurent and Kevin to prune back a lot of the hedges around the Gillbrook Road exit . Picture 5 shows the team deep in the hedge!!

LAWN MOWERS OUT IN FORCE TODAY

Another experienced NatWest volunteer took control of the electric lawn mower and made a huge improvement to the appearance of the park by mowing the grass around the edges of a number of flower beds. At the same time Gary used the petrol mower on the sports field to continue to mark out the lines on the football pitch and to treat the new cricket pitch to a good mowing. Thank you both - great work!

DOG SHOW POSTERS ARE NOW PRINTED AND ON DISPLAY

Thanks to Gill N for organising the production and display of the 2023 Didsbury Dog Show posters today. All lecterns and notice boards in the park were updated individually by Gill today. The Didsbury Dog Show this year will be held in Didsbury Park between 2pm and 4pm on Saturday 16th September. Please do spread the word and come along if you can!! Thank you Gill.

Picture 6 shows this year's poster.

GILLBROOK ROAD ENTRANCE

Thanks once again to Brenda's dedication, the Gillbrook Road entrance was looking spotless again today.

Picture 7 shows Brenda receiving some great support from the NatWest team.

Thank you Brenda.

ANOTHER GREAT PROJECT BY THE HEAVY GANG

Once again the heavy gang turned its attention today to another challenging project in the park. This time the team tackled the problem of how to achieve a better solution to the drainage of excess water from the water tap at the rear of the cafe. The chosen solution was to add a secondary drainage culvert leading to a new soakaway.

Picture 8 shows today's heavy gang of Adrian, Gary N, Rob and Richard half way through the creation of the soakaway and picture 9 (taken this evening) shows the final resultant drainage culvert, successfully cemented in place. This should significantly improve the prevention of any flooding along the path as a result of a water spill. Amazing result guys!! Thank you.

MORE GRASS RE-SEEDING

Following the success of re-seeding over the new drain diggings between the roundabout and the cafe, we selected further areas of damaged grassland to repair today. This project was undertaken by Marie-Claude and Suborno and picture 10 shows one of the areas where the skip had been left on the grass for a long time by the contractors and consequently killed off the grass.

Picture 10 shows Anne with Suborno, instead of Marie-Claude, for no other reason than it was taken after Marie-Claude had just left the park and Anne happened to be passing. Thank you Marie-Claude and Suborno for working so hard to prepare and sow this area. Incidentally, in the background of picture 10 you can see one of the NatWest volunteers mowing the newly repaired area leading to the cafe. Great results all around.

MORE PRUNING ALONG THE WOODLAND TRAIL

The dedicated team working on pruning along the outside of the woodland trail was back up to complement today when Anne joined the regulars, Dominique and Dan, as they continued to do an excellent piece of maintenance.

This whole area is looking so much smarter now and has the major advantage of enabling the MCC trucks to drive more safely and easily along the park path.

Thank you Dan, Dominique and Anne. Great job.

THE FLOWER BEDS NEAR THE BIRD GARDEN

A big thank you to Greg and Tristan who continued the work they started last week to weed and woodchip the flower bed near the Bird Garden. This area is looking better and better. Thank you both.

EDGING

It was lovely to see the dedication from Leslie once again today as she worked upon tidying the edging near the rose beds. Picture 11 shows Leslie proudly pointing out the results of her work.

Thank you Leslie.

MCC CONSULTATION

I was very pleased today to welcome Will White from MCC to meet some of our horticultural team to discuss the future of our wild flower meadow and the plan for our flower bed along the newly repaired section of the Flower Walk Wall.

The discussion on the wild flower meadow did not go well. In my opinion the wild flower meadow this year has been a huge disappointment. Instead of the beautiful wild flowers and sparkling colours of the previous year we have had a wild flower meadow this year full of dominant grasses. It is strongly suspected that we were given a supply of seeds with a large grass mix - hence the disappointment. However some of our team felt that the grasses were just how wild flower meadows should be - maybe I have it wrong and am showing my age, but it reminded me of the overgrown bomb sites after the Second World War. We are going to have to decide as a group what we want to do.

The discussion on the plans for the new flower bed along the Flower Walk went much better with an outline of new plants (roses & lavender to name but two) being in general agreement. The latest forecast for completion of the work on the wall is 2 weeks (but it has been forecast at 2 weeks for completion for the last 3 weeks).

We were given permission to enter the site and it is clear from the condition of the flower bed that it contains a lot of brick materials and will need a lot of preparation and compost before we start planting. We had always anticipated this, and are now working with Will to see how we source the materials we need.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE DEBATE?

Could you please let me know if you have any thoughts on the following?

Can you let me know what you think of the current state of the wild flower meadow and what if anything you think we should do about it please?

Every year at this time of year I raise an order with MCC for spring bulbs. I will be raising our order later this week. Can you let know if you have any preference for any particular spring bulbs for areas of the park you normally work in please?

THURSDAY THIS WEEK (24TH SEPTEMBER)

I am pleased to report that we have a team of over 30 volunteers from Autotrader who want to volunteer with us in the park on Thursday morning this week starting at 9:30am. I am even more pleased to report that Allan and Sonia have already volunteered to help me with the supervision. If you would like to join in as well then please just let me know.

Thank you once again for your amazing support.