Friends Of Philips Park Bury

11/01/2026

And if you’d like to hear those fine voices, here you go. Don’t forget to give it a like! Surely singing in the rain deserves that!

Wassailing 2026. That's a wrap. It was cold and wet but the love shone through!

Thanks to Emma and BBC Manchester for covering the event.

Wassail song - https://youtu.be/wbmSF0w5VDE

11/01/2026

Wassail in Philips Park Orchard today, and yes that is toast in the trees, and yes that is local radio who came and celebrated too, and yes it was raining.

It’s always a pleasure to support our colleagues Incredible Edible Prestwich and District - IEPAD, and it was lovely to see a fine voiced crowd of noisemakers supporting them too.

Great soup and snacks were provided to sustain everyone afterwards.

10/01/2026

A great event to start the year with gusto! Come along and help scare the bad spirits away from the orchard; help share blessings for a fruitful harvest.

Or just come and admire the park 😁

Wassailing is back at this Sunday at Philips Park on 11th January.
It starts at 12pm to 2pm – meet at The Barn. Free entry, live music, fire, food and of course Wassailing.

Find out more: https://iepad.co.uk/events/event/wassailing2026/

25/12/2025

Merry Christmas from all at Friends of Philips Park 🎄

And very best wishes to our wonderful volunteers too 👍

06/11/2025

If you’ve been wondering what to do with all the leaves on your garden, or what we do with the leaves we clear in the park, here’s a guide to making leaf mould.

The park is big enough for us to have chicken wire enclosures to contain the leaves whilst they rot down, but at home you could use a bin liner! Add some moisture if the leaves are dry, and poke some holes in the bag. Tie the bag loosely, and leave it somewhere out of the way for a couple of years. It takes a couple of years for the leaves to rot down, so if you had the room you could have a bag of great compost every year!

We use the compost from the bottom of our enclosures, and top up as we clear leaves. The compost is often spread over areas to help add nutrients and texture to the soil, and sometimes as a mulch.

This is a brief introduction to leaf mould; there is more in depth information out there, but hopefully this adds a bit of clarity to the wire cages you might see round the park!

06/11/2025

Some more of the gorgeous colours in the park. We’ve weeded, planted, cleared unwanted plants and shrubs, and been lucky with the weather!

Do come and see all the wonderful autumn colour, and look out for flowers too; we’ve got a few plants that are still in flower, and producing more buds. Cosmos is one to look out for!

29/10/2025

We planted the last lot of crocus bulbs on Monday, and what lovely weather we had for it too! It’s a beautiful time of year full of colour, and crisp vibrant days followed by crisp sparkling nights.

Rather than share photos of soil, here are some photos of the park, carpets of leaves, and some of the plants still in flower.

And yes, many of those leaves will end up in our leaf mould stores; providing nutrient rich compost for the park.

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21/10/2025

This is disgusting. Too many reports of community spaces being damaged or destroyed.

If anyone can help at all, please contact the Lancashire Wildlife Trust - Nature and Wellbeing

21/10/2025

We have tasks that we can do in the rain, or around the rain, which is just as well really! If you look at the last photo, the planter we tidied up, the small vertical lines you can see are rain; we didn’t need to water anything we planted on Monday!

The first two photos are mushrooms that the team spotted; one visitor to the park spotted 18 different varieties on their walk! Can any of our visitors beat that? Do let us know!

03/10/2025

More planting this week, crocus this week as well as daffodils. We’ve also done some grounds maintenance.

‘Planting’ is a short hand way of saying weeding, clearing, digging over the ground!

Are you coming to Apple Day on Sunday? A wonderful event hosted by Incredible Edible Prestwich and District - IEPAD, with some very tasty products on sale! We will also be around if you want to chat about what we do 🙂

26/09/2025

Yes folks. It’s bulb planting season again, and here are a small number of the daffodils we have or will be planting around the park over the next few weeks. If that looks a lot, we have several thousand still to go!

As well as future flowers, many of the ones we grew from seed and planted out are still looking great. The pollinators are making good use of them, and we’ll definitely be planting more next spring, some from seed collected this year.

02/08/2025

There is too much theft and destruction of community areas going on. If you see anything please report it.

What kind of person hates their area so much they deliberately vandalise and steal from areas that are created to give back to the community?

Community areas and contents are supported, supplied, and maintained by volunteers, with the odd occasion of a kind donation.

If you know anything about this theft, please let the police know. Thank you

Our wildlife camera at Philips Park has been stolen! 😡

Across our sites, we've had even more acts of vandalism this year. Volunteers put in hundreds, probably thousands, of hours of time and care into these beautiful sites.

Report any crime or anti social behaviour here: https://www.gmp.police.uk/ro/report/