20111030 Wild Flower Meadow Clean Up and Grass Cutting
Summoned by The Friends of Surrey Square Park's (FoSSP) Chair, Daniel,
few of us gathered to sort out the wild flower meadow. Since it inception the meadow was deliberately more or less left alone. Julian looked after it, repaired the fence and watered regularly the ground in summer (with considerable effort!!) and when needed re-turfed part of the grass sods that were stripped and remedied other vandalisms.
However it was decided that major work would wait for autumn to give the grasses a chance to establish a cover and for the turf to stabilise.
The counterpart of this is that the vegetation (and the rubbish) eventually form a thick cover that left in place would eventually prevent other plants and flowers from growing back.
So in the absence of grazing and the absence of the park maintenance contractors involvement * , FoSSP has to do it from time to time.
It turned out to be a good afternoon in spite of the drizzle and autumnal chill.A couple of people that had promised to show up could not make it but there were enough of us to do the work without much problems.
it is always good to do something for the community and even in this God forgotten nick of the sub-urban jungle passer-by and local characters were happy to see a little civic pride in action.
Some people bemoan the inevitable breakage, the wear and tear of Council estates existence but to be honest I always find surprising that things have gone so far.
Ten years ago I would have scorned the idea that you could have wild flowers without anyone using the spot to burn stolen cars on it!
In any case it was good fun and everybody seemed satisfied of the results.
Julian got the tools and was the main man of the event (as usual) but
Frank in spite of the busy lifestyle (and carrying
some years of wisdom and just about most of the projects bidding for FoSSP) repaired the plaque on the raised planter bed in the Memorial Garden and helped out with enthusiasm. We took the cuttings to the WLA compost hip and departed in good spirit.