Friends of Memorial Park Task Days in 2011
Here are details of our task days in 2011.
An amazingly productive New Year's Eve task day! Although it was mostly wet and miserable and not very good for taking photographs we got a huge amount done. Achievements including clearing a bed near to the library ready for sowing wildflower seeds, reducing the gravel in the strip near the library and transplanting it to the Sensory Garden, a big sweep-up of the area in front of the library and refurbishment of the broken notice board on the library wall.
We also cleared the border around the Reading Circle behind the library ready for sowing wildflowers and transplanted the shrubs and plants from there to a number of other places in the park. Finally, we replaced the refurbished slats on the bench (Mac's Bench) that we stripped down last month and it looks absolutely brilliant - as good as new even. Well done everyone!
A quieter turn-out for our last task day of 2011 but we still got a fair bit done. Earlier in the week one of our volunteers had removed all the weeds from the border of the car park near to the library and today we removed the top layer of soil and replaced it with gravel, which we hope will suppress the weeds and keep it looking tidier. We also weeded the pathway to the Sensory Garden and added more gravel and put what we had left around the small memorial in the park where people like to place wooden crosses in memory of their lost relatives. After that we tidied the shrub border near to the Council Offices too.
We also removed the wooden slats from one of the commemorative seats near to the Bowling Green and jet-washed the upstands and paving. The slats will be refurbished in a workshop, treated and replaced as part of our ongoing project to replace or refurbish all of the benches in the park. There will be more about this long term project on the web site in the near future.
We decided to hold a special Remembrance weekend Task Day to make sure that the area around the War Memorial was looking its best for the service on Sunday 13th and it's a good job we did as we discovered that the handrails on the memorial had been vandalised overnight. It's hard to find the words to express our contempt for this kind of act but at least we were in a position to do something about it and were able to carry out a temporary repair.
We had another great response from our volunteers at short notice and people attending the Remembrance Service should be able to see the results. As well as removing leaves and hoeing the flower beds we painted a litter bin that had been desperate for a coat of paint and cleared the leaves all the way down the main drive into the park. It was particularly good to have families with children helping out on a beautiful sunny autumn day.
Thank you everyone for your help!
A very good turnout by our local volunteers made for another busy day in Memorial Park.
The ornamental flowerbeds were weeded, trimmed and spring bulbs planted - we've been receiving lots of compliments from park visitors about the ornamental beds, which is very encouraging. The large shrub bed near to the tree sculpture was also given a good tidy-up and and an old concrete bench near to the bowling green was removed in readiness for the installation of a new one that is being donated by a local family.
It was good to see Micaela enjoying the sunshine and fresh air in the park despite her recent accident but Howie will be sad to learn that I broke my camera this month!
Another successful task day with a lot of work done to the War Memorial beds including removing ornamental grasses that had spread too much and planting of new shrubs and plants kindly donated by Marple Garden Centre.
Preparatory work was also carried out on one of the park benches near to the Junior Play area, the refurbishment of which is being paid for by a local family. Today we stripped off the old slats and cleaned and painted the frame ready for fitting of brand new hardwood slats and a commemorative plaque.
Unfortunately the camera had a flat battery, so just this one panoramic view of work to the War Memorial beds taken by phone.
The Bank Holiday weekend saw a smaller turnout than usual but plenty was achieved with more donated plants being added to the War Memorial Beds, Jet Washing of about half the Infants Play Area fence, re-installation of one of the Acorn Sculptures that had been removed by vandals and removal of a large truck-load of brambles from the Breathe Places Area behind the library. Thanks once again are due to Les and Jean White for donation of the War Memorial plants.
Glorious sunshine at last allowed us to make the most of the summer weather during a task day in the park. A selection of plants were added to the War Memorial Rockery and copious weeding was carried out in the ornamental beds. Some strawberries and parsley were also added to the Rainbows and Beavers' beds. The plants added today and also a good number provided earlier this month have been donated by local gardeners Les and Jean White and we are very grateful for their generosity.
A final coat of black paint was also added to the Bowling Green building.
