The Visiting a slick new urban park has been hugely popular and extremely busy over the past few weeks. This is the first city centre park to be opened in Manchester in more than 100 years, but it has been designed for the 21st century.
East Piccadilly has recently been changed from a pretty dodgy derelict area to a burgeoning district of new apartments, leisure and now this beautifully designed park.
While not huge, there is a lot crammed into Mayfield Park, with bridges and winding paths taking you over the River Medlock, which was uncovered from its tarmac covering.
The kids play area is clearly a huge hit with numerous vast tube slides, one of them snaking across the river itself. Across the whole park, the planting is stunning with plenty of perennials for wildlife and lots of native grasses too. The planting is of course still very new, so it will be lovely to see it burst into life next year, once established.
New rooftop terrace in Wigan
I’ve been taking more images of this rooftop terrace in Wigan, with all the planting settling in. While you do have to be aware of the microclimate of a rooftop, as well as the weight issues, as you can see, we really don’t compromise on planting.
What am I watching?
This third episode of the BBC series which follows the build of RHS Bridgewater has just been shown on BBC2. The first two episodes were shown in May and June 2021, making it quite a fractured watch. Those first two episodes are only available for another few weeks so I recommend you go and watch them again now!
It’s lovely to see the behind-the-scenes footage in this episode, which takes place just after the gardens opened to the public. It’s such a vast space with many different distinct spaces, so it’s a great easy early evening watch.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001d1rt/the-great-northern-garden-build-series-1-episode-3
