City of Westminster are supporting a nine week run of fitness sessions to take place in our park on Tuesdays and Saturdays.
Join Chantal, the coach from Our Parks, for a morning workout. It is FREE, lasts 60 minutes and caters for all abilities. She’ll be next to the outdoor gym area by Ilbert/Fourth Avenues entrance.
You do need to register your interest and book each session here.
(Check our events list, if you want to join us for a bit of gardening after the Saturday sessions!)
In association with Neighbourhood Funds, Open Age, CityWest Homes, A2 Dominion and Veolia, the Queen’s Park Community Council are holding a Winter Fair again this year.
There’s also an indoor event for the over 50’s beforehand in St Jude’s Hall.
Put it in the diary!
The Queen’s Park Gardens Winter Fair looks set to be better than ever. Please put a note in your diary. We’d all love to see you. If you can, please share this on social media.
The Queen’s Park Community Council organised another wonderful firework display in the park on Guy Fawkes night. A rainy day gave way to a couple of dry hours, just in time.
Our intrepid photographer, Ray was there to capture some of the atmosphere and spectacle. The stills gallery is below.
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Once again, a wonderful firework display has been organised for Queen’s Park Gardens.
The gates will be open from 5:30 and there are parking restrictions in Third Avenue and Ilbert Street. The fireworks begin at 6pm.
If you have Time Credits, you can gain entry to the special V.I.P. area. Two credits per person means you can join the Community Champions for a special view.
Over the last few months, we have been very privileged to welcome local artist, Donald Macauley into the Wildlife Area as he has painted this wonderful view of the London Plane with the mound and Ilbert Street in the background. The colours from my camera do not do this justice!
Donald grew up in East Anglia during the 1950s where the wild flowers among the corn, clouds of butterflies, and largely quiet, safe roads were his playground.
He has been painting since he was 16 and studied art at Reading University. However, it is only in his early retirement, he has found the time to fully embrace his talent.
He has been living in the Queen’s Park estate since 1984 and we are lucky to have him among us.
Come and help us find them hiding in the trees and bushes!
Our next Gardening Session will commence in the Wildlife Area at 10am on 31st Oct. More details here.
If you’re making pumpkin lanterns, don’t waste any food! Check here for ideas.
Freecycle is a wonderful resource. It put us in touch with someone who wanted to get rid of some top soil as he was completely restyling his neighbour’s garden, just over the canal. He kindly delivered about ten bags to us.
We had to sift it carefully to get rid of all the stones and unwanted vegetation but we split ourselves into two teams so that the others could be getting as much grass out of the area in the meadow where we wanted to spread the soil. Wildflowers thrive in poor quality soil but the end patches are full of stones where grass loves to grow and chokes some of the prettier flowers, if left unchecked.
On our way out of the park, we noticed a lot of cardboard packaging had been dumped in the general waste bin so we cleared the plastic and polystyrene elements back into that bin, then flattened the card and put it in the correct, recycling bin.
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We’ve been very busy since the Summer Festival.
The Wildlife Area always gets full of domestic grass and more dominant weeds. There’s also a lot of bindweed in the Rose Garden and the triangular bed outside.
Removing the dead heads from roses gives them a chance for a second bloom so they’ve thrived this year. We’ve also weeded the circular shrub bed near the Third Avenue entrance.
A couple of donations of wood chip have been spread to help keep the weeds down and also make the paths better to walk on.
We’ve had to keep an eye on the roof terrace of the Grand Marigold Bug Hotel and netted the front so that any bugs nesting there will be safe and undisturbed. We made the area around the hotel safer to walk on by levelling it with the wood chip.
The Willow Dome needs trimming & weaving each year so we got the ladder & ties out.
In the Wildlife Meadow this year, we had some fantastic teasels. Did you see them? The Echinacea, planted in the side bed last year, multiplied and gave us many wonderful blooms.
We spent some time clearing the weeds from the awkward bank near the boundary hedge. The ground drops away quite sharply there so many of our original plants did not survive. We were kindly given some lovely specimens from the Head Gardener at the Royal College of Physicians which we planted during our last session.
September is also the time for us to let the Wildlife Meadow return to seed. The park attendants let us use their strimmer last session and the Head Gardener of the Royal College of Physicians gave us some more lovely plants to put in the bank by the hedge.
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The Wildlife Area in Queen’s Park Gardens will now be open to the public on Saturdays and Sundays. It’s a great area for children and adults alike.
Please do come and enjoy the peace and greenery, and visit our new bug hotel. For the comfort of others, we ask that no dogs are brought into this area.
The area is also available free of charge for community groups during the week. Contact us for more information and booking.
Volunteers are always welcome to come and help. Check the side-bar for dates.
Come for as little or as long as you like and receive time credits in exchange for your work. There’s more information here.
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