Volunteers' Efforts Shine as FoDP Attend Buckingham Palace Garden Party

Firstly I would like to say a huge thank you to Sonia who, supported by Allan, organised the running of our volunteering session on Monday morning. While this was all happening in Didsbury Park I am delighted to report that Margaret and I were on our way to London to represent the Friends of Didsbury Park at a garden party at Buckingham Palace. This was an experience we will never forget and picture 1 shows us at the front of the palace just before joining the garden party in the beautiful grounds of the palace. There are about 39 acres of gardens at the rear of the palace but I understand there are no volunteering vacancies at the momentI 

I would also like to say a huge thank you to Kevin who kindly drafted the following report and produced some great photographs in my absence.

But before Kevin's Monday morning report, I would briefly like to mention the additional volunteering day we held last Friday. With some great help from Allan, Niels and Murray we hosted two large teams from business.  We had a team of 15 volunteers from Kellanova (aka Kelloggs) and 12 volunteers from PWC. With such a large number of volunteers we were able to clear a lot of the debris from the DNC garden, edge the whole of the wild flower meadow, install new safety posts around the roundabout, plant 50 'selfheal plugs' in amongst our 'vinca' beds and tidy up all the tree bases on the main field and in the rowan copse. Picture 2 shows some of the team from Kellanova who edged the wild flower meadow. Thank you Allan, Neils, Murray and  all the volunteers from Kellanova and PWC for the great work undertaken in the park on Friday.  

Monday Morning - Kevin's Report

It was a beautiful early summer morning today. We had 45 volunteers, including a team from Autotrader 

Under the guidance of Allan and Sonia, our dedicated volunteers set up the necessary equipment and began their work under the warm sun.  Our main focus was on weeding and general park maintenance, significantly improving the park's appearance.

Sandhurst Road entrance

The Autotrader team did an excellent job tidying up the area. They trimmed the overgrown hedges and carried out essential weeding, and by the end of the morning, it looked great.

Flower Walk

A large group carried out general weeding of this border to remove many weeds that were starting to encroach on the perennial plants in this border.

Preparation for Kings Award reception

The heavy gang continued to prepare an area in the grounds of Didsbury Good Neighbours for our forthcoming reception to celebrate the Kings Award. They constructed a small wooden platform around the new planters, which will be used for the presentation.

Wildflower Meadow

We conducted a thorough evaluation of the wildflower meadow and were delighted to discover that over 20 varieties of wildflowers are thriving this year, with many of them beginning to bloom. We were also pleased to observe the effective performance of the grass-suppressing plants, which should result in a lovely combination of flowers and grass this year.

Other work

Other groups of volunteers completed various tasks to maintain and improve the park. These tasks included tidying the Gillbrook Road entrance, trimming the grass around the bases of trees, installing posts at the roundabout area, cutting the Bird Garden grass, repairing holes in the bird garden hedges to prevent curious dogs from entering, and carrying out general weeding of the flower beds around the shelter and towards the roundabout.  These improvements looked great at the end of the morning.

As usual, we would like to thank everyone for their work this morning. 

Best wishes: Kevin