Wendell Park Gardening Friends

Wendell Park Gardening Friends has just been featured in the Council’s latest newsletter .  In case you missed it, take a look at the article here .

We have teamed up with the Spacehive crowdfunding platform to raise funds to advance our project.  Please help us to raise funds by pledging your support.   The council has £200,000 of funds available for projects through the Community Infrastructure Levy and have indicated the they will back us if the project attracts enough support in the community.  So please, dig deep!  It’s very quick and easy to do, and it all helps.  

Narcissi bulbs being planted by year 3 children

On Tuesday 10th October,   Wendell Park School  and WPGF  planted a 5kg bag of yellow and white narcissi bulbs. The ground was prepared  by clearing the leaves, digging the earth over and marking the areas for the children.

We used garden game paint to make four irregular shapes in order to make the planting look more natural. We located the planting close to the picket fence for increased protection.

Ruth and Caroll arrived with the first of three groups of 8 children, very well prepared, each with a trowel,  pair of gloves and bag for kneeling on.  Ruth then explained which way to put the bulb in the earth by pointing out the little roots at the bottom of the bulbs and told the children to expect the flowers in spring time.

All in all, around 100 bulbs were planted. To mark the end of the event and to the children’s delight,  a beautiful robin made an appearance, looking for worms in the freshly turned soil.

 

 

We have placed our first order for bulbs:  mixed daffodils and narcissi, snowdrops, winter aconites and peppermint and mixed muscari. Approximately 1000 bulbs altogether! The Southern border should really come to life this spring and we are hoping that the bulbs will naturalise with time.

Delivery is expected the first week of October, planting should take place soon after that. There will be an “action day” where all members and any volunteers will be able to  participate in the planting.  The event will be advertised in the usual way via posters on the park gates, the Nextdoor website and a round robin email to those who have registered an interest. An update will be given at our AGM on 10th October.

Our group of volunteers is currently clearing designated areas in the South border in order to prepare for bulb planting, in October hopefully.

We are pulling out the snowberry shrub, an incredibly invasive plant, which propagates through lateral roots up to 1 meter long. Very difficult and thankless task! The plant seems to grow back as quickly as it is pulled out.