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Last Saturday of April was the scheduled Friends of Surrey Square walkabout.
As tradition dictate it was a miserable rainy, cold and windy day but still under the lowering sky a small band of dedicated park appreciators started gathering.
At first only the die-hard arrived, even earlier than expected, and for a while the splashing of raindrops on newly grown grass and the indomitable chirping and calling of the many species of birds was the only sounds that echoed through the green empty spaces.Half expecting that we would have to content with the present audience, we whiled time away by looking up for park newcomers and sure enough we found how the days of heavy rain have brought forward some little fungi jewels: here a clamp of Blewits (Lepista flaccida) and there some Common bonnets (Mycena gelericulata) made our day.
When we thought we got off scot-free others joined in and soon the walkabout and discussion took off.
Not surprising much of the interests was reserved to the "Peter Martins" Memorial Garden. Not surprising because later on this year the second instalment of the Open Space Fund works will take place (Open Space Fund was the same granting bid that financed the fist stage of the works that put the pathways, etc. in the park). And much of it is concentrated in reshaping the Memorial Garden.
Basically half of it should be replanted and remodelled.
Butthere is some difference in the views of the extent and type of prospected works.
Now some part of the Memorial Garden has already been modified.
A planter has been added (more should follow), the hedge bushes trimmed with few new addition planted, paths resurfaced and benches added, tree stumps and dead saplings removed and turf repaired. All this has been accomplished without much controversy but the problem is about the rest of the garden.This used to be a nature garden kept by the local primary school before the integration in the park. In addition a couple of larger sycamores there and they have sprouted a lot of saplings and around them a little forest of baddleja and staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) [I thought that they were ailanthus instead] with an healthy cover of ivy and honeysuckle (some kind of lonicera ) and some are very keen to preserve it both because of the time it take to create the habitat and because of the quality of the plants.
Other again think that we got enough invasive sycamore and sumacs and should make space for new more valuable plants and more trimming.
In the back of the area the clearance of the sycamore offspring was contentious but at the end a compromise was reached.
The second issue was the placement of exercise equipment that will be used to provide a small fitness trail (a miniature version of what they have in Kennington Park) .They should go mostly around and as a continuation of some playing facilities, the wooden trunks, the boulders and the step-trail.
But few also around the rest of the park. Where however was a matter of divided opinions.
After much soul searching it was decided to postpone the final decision at the meeting that would follow the walkabout (so that people by now thoroughly numbed by exposure could unfreeze their remaining brain cells with a revitalising brew and cheese and biscuits) . All agreed and ready trooped off to the comfort of the local TA Hall we used for meetings.
Much discussion and paperwork still to be had but at last warmth!! When we left all were happily in agreement.
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