A Glimpse into Didsbury Park’s Past – Plus a Big Week for Volunteering
THE HISTORY OF DIDSBURY PARK - CIRCA 1900 - CHILDREN IN THEIR SUNDAY BEST
We do not have a date for the picture of Didsbury Park shown in Picture 1 but given it is entitled "the Recreation Ground" we are estimating that it was taken around the turn of the century about 1900. Some of the interesting things about this historical picture are as follows:
The picture is taken from the top of the path from the Wilmslow Road entrance.
The stars of this picture are undoubtably the children. They all look as though they are dressed in their Sunday best. It may be a Sunday photo or it used to be traditional in Manchester for children to get new clothes once a year at Whit whereupon they would visit local neighbours who would admire the new clothes and give them some extra pocket money. Of course new clothes at Whit meant that all the children looked smart for the Whit Walks too.
Note the rockery featured on the front left hand side of the picture. It is exactly the same position as the rockery is today - although I suspect that in this picture the rocks may be genuine rocks instead of the painted concrete and red brick "rocks" which exist in the rockery today.
The background centre of the picture is dominated by the back of two large Gillbrook Road houses, both of whom today belong to members of the Friends of Didsbury Park (Jim and Kevin).
Behind the children posing for the picture is quite an extensive flower bed containing large upright rocks. The flower bed follows the line of the path. Today the majority of the flower bed (and some of the path) has been grassed over BUT we did restore some of the flower bed when we relocated the Flower Walk plants when the Flower Walk wall was being restored a couple of years ago. We do try and make this flower bed as colourful and attractive as possible so that it is a feature that can be seen as you enter the park along the path from the Wilmslow Road entrance.
Thanks once again to Louise for researching these exciting archive pictures from the Manchester Libraries.
MCC VOLUNTEERS WEEK - A MUST WATCH VIDEO FEATURING DIDSBURY PARK VOLUNTEERS!
Please click on this link to see some of our volunteers being interviewed for MCC volunteer week! It is a lovely video, with some great interviews and well worth watching!
LAST WEEK - THE CHALLENGE OF THE HOT DRY WEATHER
Last Monday we planted over 1000 new summer plants in the park and since then we have had 5 days without rain and daily high temperatures approaching 30 degrees. Thanks to some great additional voluntary shifts put in from Sonia, Allan, Kevin and myself we have made sure that all the new plants were given a regular watering throughout the week and I am pleased to say that they were still all thriving today ready for some more normal Manchester summer weather forecast for this next week!! A huge thank you to Sonia, Kevin and Allan.
TODAY
We had a great turnout of 58 volunteers in some reasonable weather for volunteering this morning. It was warm with a few showers which had the benefit of keeping the soil nice and soft for working in. Our volunteers today included 2 new young volunteers Natalia and Esme (see picture 2) who along with Aristote from Clayton College and his helper Sheeba did a great litter pick across the whole park. Thank you.
We also had lots of returning volunteers from business. Ellie and Vicky came from Carrier, the luxury travel company. Anna and Tony came from Pets at Home. Michael, Ian, Nathaniel, Gerald and Isabella came from Forvis Mazars an accountancy company and for the first time we had 7 volunteers from Manchester Grammar School with 3 members of staff as supervisors. We also had a late arriving new volunteer called Euan. Everybody was made very welcome.
TODAY - SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETING ALL THE SUMMER PLANTING
I am delighted to report that in the last two weeks we have successfully planted over 2,000 new summer bedding plants throughout the park. This is an amazing achievement and the park is now looking absolutely full of colour! Today we completed all the planting. Thanks to Christine and Sandra who did a superb job adding geraniums at the Wilmslow Road gate. Sandra then joined Lorna (in the hat), Carl and Gill B to plant up one of the flower beds near the volunteer's shelter (see picture 3).
Picture 4 shows Denise and Louise admiring their work having completed a super job planting geraniums in the rose beds. Picture 5 shows Augustine and Carl T admiring the completion of the planting in the flower bed behind Buddy and Lucy. Thank you to everybody who participated in this huge planting exercise. The results are amazing.
TODAY - PREPARATION FOR THE RHS JUDGING ON MONDAY 21st JULY - TREE BASES
We all took a critical look around the park today to see where we could make improvements for the forthcoming RHS judges visit on Monday 21st July, as part of the North West in Bloom competition. One obvious improvement area was the current status of some of the bases of the trees, particularly the newer, smaller ones. So today the Manchester Grammar School students split into 3 teams and after a demonstration of what was required, made a super job of removing all grass and weeds from around six tree bases and then applying a layer of woodchip. They not only thoroughly enjoyed the work, they learnt some things along the way and the results looked great. A huge thank you.
Thank you also to Carl N who mowed around the tree bases to give them a final tidy up. In other areas of the park, particularly the Bird Garden, Joyce worked with MIchael from Mazars and Allan to make a huge improvement to the look of the fruit trees before moving on to the Empress tree and one of the amelanchier's. Picture 6 shows Joyce and Michael next to the Empress tree shortly after having tidied its base. Thank you to everyone who was involved - this was a huge improvement!
TODAY - PREPARATION FOR THE RHS JUDGING ON MONDAY 21st JULY - HEDGE TRIMMING & TIDYING
We had three separate teams working on tidying up hedges today.
Picture 7 shows Thanh and Shasvat with Ellie and Vicky from Carrier pausing for a picture as they worked on the hedge around the Bird Garden. Picture 8 shows Anna and Tony, from Pets at Home, tidying up the hedge around the wild flower meadow and picture 9 shows the amazing transformation undertaken at the Sandhurst Road gates where the overgrown holly hedges were given an extensive prune by the team of Rebecca and Chris supported by two of the volunteers from Mazars. Thank you everyone for working so hard and making such major improvements.
TODAY - PREPARATION FOR THE RHS JUDGING ON MONDAY 21st JULY - DISPLAY BOARD FOR AWARDS AND CERTIFICATES
Today the heavy gang of Murray, Adrian, Richard and Carl N worked on making a display board for the volunteers shelter which would enable us to display the awards and certificates awarded to the Friends of Didsbury Park.
Picture 10 shows Adrian and Murray having cut out the base board and painted it with primer. Thanks guys - this is looking good so far!
TODAY - ELSEWHERE IN THE PARK
Brenda did a great clean up around the Gillbrook Road entrance despite being impeded by the the gusty winds. Well done Brenda.
Tristan continued to cut back on selected seasonal shrubs. Thank you Tristan.
Ilma, Diane and Lucy added new plants to the 'oasis' area near the Wilmslow Road gate. This area just gets better and better. Thank you.
Kevin, Greg and Richard continued their work on the woodland projects. Great progress continues. Thank you.
Alan did some work cutting back some epicormic growth on some of the bigger trees before moving on to prune back some of our bamboo near the volunteers shelter. Thank you Alan - you have transformed the bamboo from a jungle look to an attractive, thriving plant - great job!
Once again, thank you for your amazing support - it is appreciated.