Articles

by Jane L Morris, Biodiversity Champion with contributions from Dan Thomson Since 2019 the Friends of Platt Fields Park has been tree planting with Creative Rusholme and other organisations. Last November the Friends with staff and students including ‘Green Student Welfare’ from MMU planted a new area of native woodland between the west bridge and […]

What to do if you find an Injured or Deceased Animal, in the Park? By Mary Collins It is difficult when you find an injured or deceased wild animal or Duck/Goose/Swan in Platt Fields Park, so here’s some advice that might be useful in such an emergency. Just a small but important, word of warning:

A few months ago I wrote a blog post asking where our Park Plan was. In the middle of September we were invited to an open consultation to help the council write the Park Plan. There were three sessions where people would share their concerns and aspirations for Platt Fields in a friendly setting with

In the previous decade Friends’ volunteers had built raised beds around a central vegetable area and a central bay tree and four apple trees within. However, like the rest of the garden it had become overgrown with nettles, brambles and horsetail. Our work began in 2021 as part of the overall Shakespearean Garden restoration.
Photos 1 & 2
In Autumn 2021 we began clearing and preparing the main beds using the ‘No Dig’ method one of the best known proponents of which is Charles Dowding. An introduction to No Dig can be found in his blog, https://www.charlesdowding.co.uk/resources/beginners-guide.
The whole area was strimmed as flat as possible area then covered with cardboard to suppress and kill weeds. The beds and pathways were marked out, the pathways covered with bark and beds with compost. Horsetail still found its way through and new weeds self-seed so weeding is still needed but much less than would have been the case.

If you walk around Platt Fields today you might well wonder what the plan is. You might see volunteers doing some gardening, some people cutting the grass, or putting up fences. Everyone looks like they know what they’re doing, but beyond that there is actually little to no agreement about what we are all working