Nature's Gym in Mayow Park, July 2014

This post should have been published in late July 2014 but somehow got forgotten with all the other excitement that was happening in Mayow Park in July and August.
Nature's Gym volunteers, led by Judith from Glendale and Jordon for Lewisham, ran two sessions in July to help our park volunteers with some of the gardening tasks that had been neglected. We were lucky that both days were sunny, 24th July and 31st July. The volunteers could choose from several tasks.

 One task was to rebuild the 'bug' hotel in the woodland near the hard-standing. The pallets were moved to a more visible position, stacked on top of each other and filled with leaves, grass, twigs and other woodland bits to create a cosy habitat for any creatures that would be interested.

The bug hotel begins to take shape

At the Triangle beds and across the path from the raspberry canes, there is a bench. Behind it is a maple tree stump with suckered growth around it. The growth  looked like a giant, unkempt, bush. Instead of removing all the suckered growth, it was decided to remove some only, to create a den and to reveal the tree stump with its fungi. Thank you J & J for this great additional feature in the park. Over the past couple of months since then children (and adults) have had great fun running in and out of the den.

Jordon in the new den

Judith in the new den

Another task for the volunteers was to re-mulch the woodland path between the larger plant bed and the magnificent dawn redwood tree. More volunteers pulled out overgrown plants and pruned the herb plants. The photos here hardly give the true flavour of what was achieved. Thank you to Nature's Gym. Since their visit more of our own park volunteers have been busy tidying up the Triangle beds and working on the orchard.