Category: News

Thank you to everyone who came along to help in the Seafront Gardens during August.  
 
We had 15 litter pickers join us at the Play Park, when we were also able to spread out into Marine and Crescent Gardens, the roadsides and the grassed areas near the Marina. 
 
We also had 15 gardeners at our three sessions, when we worked on the rockery area in Marine Garden and the stream in Beach Lawn.  We’re making good progress in clearing out the reeds and mud from the stream, and in the next month or two should be able to carry on with clearing more of the pond.  After working on the stream, we turned the water on to top up the pond which had dried up considerably after the hot weather.
 
Our volunteers have spent at least 45 hours in August working in the Gardens.               
 
Sadly, as with many other areas, the Seafront Gardens have suffered from vandalism in the last few weeks.  The “World Reimagined” globe sculpture in Marine Garden had to be removed due to damage, and the fire brigade has been called out to the Gardens several times recently.

On a happier note, we will be holding our Autumn Festival on Saturday 17th September between 12pm and 4.00pm in Marine Garden.  There will be children’s games, a bouncy castle, train rides, refreshments and a number of stalls including books, plants and community stalls, plus live music from The Travelling Wannabes.

If you have any children’s books or toys in good condition you would like to donate, please let us know.  Also, if you are available to help on the day you would be more than welcome!  Please let us know if you are able to help set up or take down, or would be able to help run a stall on the day!

Our Litter Pick this month will take place on Saturday 10th September in Beach Lawn between 10.30am and 11.30am.

Our gardening sessions will take place on Tuesday 13th September at 9.30am, Sunday 18th September in Beach Lawn at 2.00pm and Wednesday 28th September at 1.00pm.  The Tuesday and Wednesday sessions will meet at our lock up next to the cafe.

Please do come and join us at one of our events in September, 

Best wishes,

Janet Markland
Friends of Waterloo Seafront Gardens

Thank you to everyone who has volunteered in the Gardens during July.

We had 11 litter pickers at our first session, 5 at the “extra” summer time session and 13 at our three gardening sessions when we worked on the stream in Beach Lawn, the central beds in Crescent and the rockery in Marine Garden.  Altogether, our volunteers spent more than 34 hours working in the gardens!
 
This month our litter pick will take place in the Children’s Play Park next to the marine lake on Saturday 13th August at 10.30am.   The extra summer time litter pick will take place on Saturday 27th August in Crescent Garden at 10.30am.
 
Our gardening sessions will take place on Tuesday 9th August at 9.30am and Wednesday 24th August at 7.00pm – meeting outside our lock-up next to the cafe.  Our monthly Beach Lawn session will take place on Sunday 21st August at 2pm.
 
We have a Book Sale this Saturday, 6th August between 11.00am and 4.00pm on the paving opposite the Waterloo Sunset cafe.  Do come down and pick up a book or two!  If you have any books you’d like to donate, please do get in touch.  We are especially keen to stock up on children’s books.

On Sunday 21st August we hope to have the Liverpool Network Theatre performing Shakespeare in Marine Garden.  

Hope to see you in the Gardens during August!

Janet Markland
Friends of Waterloo Seafront Gardens

Thank you to everyone who came along to help in the Seafront Gardens in June.  We had 13 litter pickers in Crescent Garden, and 8 gardeners at both of our weekday sessions when we worked on the rockery in Marine Garden and the raised bed and grass edges on the lawns in centre of Crescent Garden.  
 
Our new motorised trolley has been a great success – it definitely makes moving the heavy grass turfs a lot easier!!  (in some places we found that the grass had grown more than 12 inches out over the paving).

We raised £164 at our June book sale and had hoped to have another one on 2nd July, but after seeing the weather forecasts decided it would be best to cancel.  Hopefully the weather will be kinder to us at a date later in the month.

Our litter picks this month will take place on Saturday 9th July and Saturday 23rd July at 10.30am in Adelaide Garden.  Some of us will be gardening there too if you’d prefer to help with that.

Our week day gardening sessions will be on Tuesday 12th July at 9.30am and Wednesday 27th July at 7.00pm (meeting at our lockup next to the cafe).  Our weekend gardening will be on Sunday 17th July at 2.00pm, meeting in Beach Lawn. 

As the evenings are still light, please note that our Wednesday gardening session has moved to 7.00pm.

Hope to see you soon in the gardens.

Best wishes, 

Janet Markland
Friends of Waterloo Seafront Gardens

Once again, thank you to everyone who has come along to help in the Seafront Gardens during May.  

We had 23 volunteers at our litter pick in Marine Garden and a total of 17 at our 3 gardening sessions – when we worked on clearing weeds around some of the benches in Crescent Garden, weeded two of the corner beds in Crescent Garden and continued our work on clearing out the stream leading to the pond in Beach Lawn.

Twenty staff from Natural England also came along to help us on 23rd May.  They worked on clearing some of the very overgrown grass borders from the pathways in the area around the raised bed in Crescent Garden.  It’s amazing how much work a few younger people can get through!!!   

We lent our litter picking equipment out to the 14th Crosby Rainbows for an evening, when they had a very successful litter pick on the beach and in the sandhills.

We were very pleased last week to become the owners of a new motorised trolley, which will make moving our equipment around a lot easier.   We would like to thank Orsted UK for contributing towards the cost via the Burbo Bank Extension Community Fund and Grantscape.

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In addition to our usual litter picking and gardening sessions, we will be holding a fundraising Book Sale on Saturday 4th June from 10.30am opposite the Waterloo Sunset Cafe.  Do come along to say hello, and to pick up some new books!!

Our Litter Pick this month will take place on Saturday 11th June in Crescent Garden between 10.30am and 11.30am.  Our gardening sessions will be on Sunday 19th June at 2.00pm in Beach Lawn (to continue working on the stream) plus Tuesday 14th June at 9.30am and Wednesday 22nd June at 1.00pm when we will meet at our lock-up next to the cafe.

Best wishes, 
Janet Markland
Friends of Waterloo Seafront Gardens

Thank you to everyone who came along to our volunteer events in April.
 
We had 21 at our litter pick in the Children’s Play Park when we collected 5 bags of rubbish from the playground and surrounding area.
 
Sadly, our Tuesday gardening session was rained off, but 6 of us spent last Wednesday afternoon working on the rose bed in Potter’s Barn.  We cleared the weeds and added horse manure and then a layer of wood bark to the bed in the hope that this will keep weeds down in future.


Before
 
After

It’s now possible to see that there are a few gaps in the bed, and we learnt from Angela (Green Sefton) that the rose is a white shrub variety called “Waterloo”.  We thought it would be a good idea to try and fill some of the gaps, and have found a supplier online who will have bare rooted plants available next November.  Karen put out an appeal on our Facebook page for donations towards buying the new roses, and we have already received £105 (we think we’ll need 8 to 10 and they’re £21.25 each!).  If anyone would like to contribute please follow this link to our Localgiving page here. http://www.localgiving.org/fowsg
 
Our litter pick this month will take place on Saturday 14th May between 10.30am and 11.30am in Marine Garden.  Our gardening sessions will be on Tuesday 10th May at 9.30am and Wednesday 25th May at 1.00pm meeting at our lockup next to the cafe, and our Sunday session will be on Sunday 15th May in Beach Lawn, to work on the stream leading to the pond at 2.00pm.  
 
Hope to see you in May, 

Best wishes,
 
Janet Markland
Friends of Waterloo Seafront Gardens

We’ve had a busy month in the Seafront Gardens!  Thank you to everyone who came along to help.  

We had 17 people at our Litter Pick in Potter’s Barn, when we collected rubbish from inside the park and along the roadside railings, and also weeded the raised bed and cleaned out the water fountain.  As usual, it created a lot of interest when we turned the water on and we had lots of kind comments on our Facebook page when Karen put up a video of it in action.


Cleaning the fountain at Potters Barn

We had a very productive Tuesday gardening session, when nine of us worked on cutting back some of the very overgrown buddleia and brambles in the front border of Crescent Garden.   We had agreed with Green Sefton that they would collect all our cuttings, without us having to bag them up first – which made a huge difference to the amount of work we were able to get through.  There’s plenty left for us to do though!  At our Wednesday gardening session seven of us weeded and pruned the central bed in Crescent Garden.  

We had our first Sunday gardening session this month, when eight of us worked on the stream leading to the pond in Beach Lawn.  We dug out some sections of the reeds and soil that have taken over and it was amazing to see the shape of the rocks gradually being revealed.  Again, there was lots of interest on our Facebook page, and especially when we turned the water on the following weekend to fill up the pond.  It was lovely to see the “waterfall” in action!


Clearing the channel at Beach Lawn

Three of us also went to Potter’s Barn to weed and edge the circular rose bed – work that we’ll continue this month.

Our next Litter Pick will take place at 10.30am on Saturday 9th April at the Children’s Play Park next to the Marine Lake.  Our gardening sessions will take place on Tuesday 12th April – meeting in Potter’s Barn at 9.30am, and Wednesday 27th April at 1.00pm, meeting at our usual place outside the lockup next to the cafe.  There will be no “new” Sunday session this month as it falls on Easter Sunday.

Hoping to see you soon.

Best wishes,

Janet Markland
Friends of Waterloo Seafront Gardens

Thank you to everyone who came along to our volunteer sessions in February.  
 
We had a fantastic response to our appeal for help with clearing the pond in Beach Lawn over the weekend of 5th February. More than 20 people attended each day, and we made great progress with clearing the edge of the pond, the edge around the small island and a major amount of the overgrown reeds and bullrushes.  A few of us went back again last weekend to expose the edge of the large island, and we’ve also started some work on clearing the channel leading into the pond.  We would also like to thank the Community Payback Team who ferried the debris up to an enormous pile by the gate to await collection by the Council.  
 
Work on the pond will now stop until next winter, to allow the newts some peace and quiet!

We had 12 people at our Litter Pick in Beach Lawn, when we also cleared up some of the pond debris and did some edging, and at our two gardening sessions we continued to work in Crescent Garden on the edges on the bottom path under the trees.  

Our litter pick this month takes place on Saturday 12th March in Potter’s Barn, meeting at 10.30am.  Our gardening/litter picking sessions will take place on Tuesday 8th March at 9.30am and Wednesday 23rd March at 1.00pm, meeting at our lock-up next to the cafe.

Hope to see you soon at one of our events,

Best wishes,

Janet Markland
Friends of Waterloo Seafront Gardens

Hi Everyone,
 
We had a really good start to the year with 11 volunteers at our first gardening session of 2022.  We continued to work on cutting back the grass overgrowing the path edges in Crescent Garden and discovered that the pathway in one of the empty alcoves was at least 18 inches wider than it was before we started!
 
We had 5 volunteers at our Wednesday afternoon session, when we continued to work on the edges, litter picked and cleared the drain covers in Crescent Garden.
 
Sadly, the very wet and windy weather defeated us for our scheduled litter pick in Adelaide Garden.  We had hoped to use the occasion to make a presentation to David Jackson and Caroline Guerin, but instead, a couple of us visited them at home to present David with two iron men statues, and Caroline with flowers. 

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Our routine Litter Pick/Gardening sessions this month will take place on Saturday 12th February in Beach Lawn between 10.30am and 11.30am, and on Tuesday 8th February at 9.30am and Wednesday 23rd February at 1.00pm meeting outside our lock up next to the Waterloo Sunset Cafe. 
 
Our BIG PROJECT this month is a weekend of joint sessions with Green Sefton on Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th February at 1.30pm both days, to work on clearing out the pond in Beach Lawn.  We have advertised the event in the local press, on social media and by leaflets through doors – and are hoping to get as many volunteers as possible – many hands make light work etc.!  
 
We know from past experience that it is heavy work, and we have some new tools that we hope will make it easier to cut through the thick mat of roots from the bullrushes, but would ask anyone coming along to bring any of their own tools that they think will help (mattocks/mutts/root buster spades etc)  – and of course gloves, wellington boots or waders.  

Looking forward to seeing you at one of our events, 

Best wishes,  
 
Janet Markland
Friends of Waterloo Seafront Gardens

Happy New Year to all our volunteers and Friends of Waterloo Seafront Gardens.
 
I’ve just totted up the figures, and we spent a massive 185 hours litter picking and 127 hours gardening in 2021 – not bad considering we didn’t get started until April because of lockdowns.  I know the figures would be even higher if we counted all the “unofficial” hours that individuals put in on their own.  
 
In December we had eight litter pickers in Crescent Garden, and at our Tuesday gardening session three of us continued to work on cutting back the grass edges.
 
From now on, all our Saturday sessions will be joint Litter Picking and Gardening and this month we will be meeting on Saturday 8th January between 10.30am and 11.30am in Adelaide Garden.  
 
Our gardening sessions will take place on Tuesday 11th January at 9.30am and Wednesday 26th January at 1.00pm – meeting outside our lock-up next to the cafe.  If you would prefer to litter pick instead, we’ll have access to all our equipment, so please do join us!!
 
Over the weekend of 5th/6th February we are hoping to get together a working party to clear out the pond in Beach Lawn.  This will be in conjunction with Green Sefton, and the aim is to clear it before the newts start to breed in the Spring.  We’ll be putting a call out for helpers via our newsletter and Facebook nearer the time, but if you know of any groups of strong people who would like to help, please get in touch.
 
We are also looking to borrow a “root slayer spade” or a peat cutter (!) to try out in the pond.  Do you have either of these lurking in a shed/garage? We know from past experience that there is a very thick mat of roots throughout the pond that is difficult to cut through, and if we can find some equipment that will work effectively, we would be happy to spend some of our funds to buy a couple, but would prefer to try them out first!   
 
 
Looking forward to seeing you in the Gardens in 2022,
 
Best wishes, 
 
 
Janet Markland
Friends of Waterloo Seafront Gardens

Thank you to everyone who came along to our litter picking and gardening sessions in November.  We had 19 litter pickers in Marine Garden, and at our gardening sessions we had 8 and 5 volunteers.  It was good to see a few new faces, and we continued to work on clearing the path edges, and planted a large sack of daffodil bulbs in the grassed areas around the central raised bed in Crescent Garden.  Hopefully they will look good in the Spring!
 
Our litter pick this month will take place on Saturday 11th December in Crescent Garden at 10.30am and there will be just one gardening session this month, on Tuesday 14th December at 9.30am, meeting outside our lock-up as usual.  
 
We had a successful AGM at the Victoria Hotel, when sadly we said goodbye to our Chair of the past 2 years, Caroline Guerin, Secretary (of many years and previous Chair), David Jackson, and committee member Madeleine Litchfield, who has been with us since FoWSG was formed.  Thank you to each of them for all the time and effort they have put into our work in the Gardens.  Caroline will remain on the committee, and David is moving out of the area.  
 
We now welcome our new Chair – Doll Bromilow, and Secretary – Andrew Khodabukus.

Please could we also gently remind members that the annual subscription is now due.  We ask for a voluntary donation of £5 for the year which can be paid via this link: Friends of Waterloo Seafront Gardens | Localgiving. Thank you to everyone who has donated over the last year.
 
In the New Year, we will be adding an additional monthly Sunday volunteer session to our programme, and all will become joint litter picking and gardening sessions.  Details of dates will follow shortly.
 
The Committee would like to thank everyone who has volunteered in the Gardens over the last year, and look forward to seeing you again in 2022!
 
With best wishes for Christmas and the New Year,  
 
Janet Markland
Friends of Waterloo Seafront Gardens