As part of our project this year to improve greenspace at Leverhulme Park, by June we had already slashed, bashed, cut and sowed habitats to improve 7,528sqm of land in the hopes of reaching our goal of 10,000 sqm of improvements to green spaces. Exhausting is an understatement and as always a massive thank you goes out to the volunteers. Now as we bring to a near close the end of the year, we can reveal out target of 10,000sqm has been completely smashed, after June we focused on the meadows while also bulb planting, improving an additional 8,095sqm of greenspace. Thanks goes out to Bolton Council Environmental services for using their flail to cut/rake the meadows GF14/GF13.
As you can see by the pictures, showing the bulb planting and meadow improvements, we made a grand total of 15,623 sqm of green spaces improvements. In the previous years we've attempted to sow poppies and cornflowers with terrible results, this we presume, was due to not having a scythe mower and the locations being far too damp, leading to rot of the seeds with the long grass.
This year was different, due to funding from GMEF, we had been able to purchase a scythe mower and after carefully checking native species that are growing around Leverhulme Park and the surrounding green spaces we sowed 3kg of Yellow rattle seeds (along with our stock of 2kg making 5kg) and then a mix of heavily under appreciated natives, such as red clover, oxeye daisy, self-heal, ragged robin to name just a few.
Now we wait for spring to see the daffodil bulbs flower, then we wait for summer to discover if the yellow rattle and mix of wildflower seeds have been successful. Funnily enough, as we spoke to the residents about the Long Lane section of Leverhulme Park a resident said to us "Do you know what I call this part of Leverhulme Park, the green desert". Fingers crossed with the abundance of life residents have sown and planted, it will create a new name for this section of the park.