From our correspondent, Liliana Radujko
We recently received an incredibly warm community welcome at Askew Road Library, where Katherine and Frances expertly delivered an informative presentation with slides, photos and plans a-plenty. Beginning with a brief history of Wendell Park, the talk introduced our voluntary group from it’s inception in May 2017, our objectives, ethos, fund-raising, achievements to date and, of course, exciting future plans. We explained too our dedication to British native plants, increasing biodiversity, supporting our Borough in trying to achieve a green Flag award for Wendell Park. Most importantly, that our community can ALL share, learn together and be united in a passion for plants and gardening across all ages, abilities, backgrounds or home environments.
We clarified how we are liaising closely with the Borough, seek to be an interface between our diverse park users and the Borough as we follow in the footsteps of years of work to maintain and achieve improvements in Wendell Park by the original Wendell Park Friends, such as Gina, and our hard-working, dedicated park keeper, Steve Cassidy.
We shared some of our exciting future plans for: a Propagation and Plant Exchange Day in April alongside one of our upcoming regular monthly Maintenance days; preparation of Wendell Park School gardening area, a watering point near the existing water fountain. Looking further ahead, our ambition to compete in the Chelsea Fringe Garden Festival.
The bubbly discussions with our knowledgeable audience bought forward many excellent suggestions and ideas, including how to move forward with health and safety issues for our park.
We would love to hear from anyone in the community with your ideas and comments – do get in touch with us online on our website: wendellparkgardeningfriends.co.uk or on Twitter: @WendellParkGF