On Wednesday the Glasgow Mid Week Group joined forces with The Friends of Maxwell Park and Glasgow City Council to diversify Maxwell Park pond in the south side of Glasgow. Maxwell Park pond was the first in Glasgow to be naturalised and planted with wildflowers to create habitat for wildlife, and needed some sensitive management.
Digging out wetland plants from Springburn Park
Wetland loving wildflowers were transplanted from Springburn Park into the edges of Maxwell pond. After some hard work digging out the flag iris that had colonised the pond, the volunteers replanted over 100 wildflowers including purple loosestrife, ragged robin, cuckooflower, sedges and water plantain.
We also seeded any bare ground around the pond with more wildflowers. The pond will be monitored throughout the season to assess how well the plants are becoming established.
A general litter pick was also carried out although we couldn’t reach the parts of the pond that were still icy!
Digging out the flag iris around the pond
Regenerating trees were also removed from the island, to reduce shade, by Gary the intrepid Countryside Ranger!
The final leg of our day saw the MWG take some of the flag iris over to Pollok Park for storage. We were lucky enough to see the resident Clydesdale horses having their feet washed and took the opportunity to swill some of our dirty spades in the soapy run-off water!
