Friends Of Redhall Park

Lovely start to the day in the park this morning. Lovely light and long shadows.

Amazing turnout for the inaugural Hailes Quarry Junior Parkrun! 83 young runners! 🤩
Brilliant support from Parkrun & their team, our volunteers & run directors. Special guest volunteer @drscottarthurmp.bsky.social had the honour of counting down to start the run. 🙏🏻

Out with the team doing a bit of tidying and weeding. Plants responding well after the winds and a decent watering from the canal the other night. Lots of insects and butterflies making good use of the wildflowers.

Alongside the heatwave, are we seeing an early autumn in the UK? Has autumn come sooner than expected to the UK - and does it even matter if it has?

It certainly looks like it along the Water of Leith and around the city’s parks and gardens. It’s heat stress.

Leaves falling, berries ripe, but it's hot. Is autumn coming early? www.bbc.com/news/article...

Giving our new planting zone some attention today. Starting to look really good now as the wildflowers and other plants start to mature. 🌹🌼💐🌼🌺🌷A very nice welcome to our area.

Free Trees for Schools and Communities We’re giving away hundreds of thousands of trees

📢 Calling school & community groups! Only 27 days to apply for a pack of FREE TREES (for delivery in Nov 2025). Choose from packs of 30, 105 or 420 native species. You need🌱 the grid ref of where you plan to plant & 🙋‍♂️ the permission of the legal landowner. Apply 👉

A joyous burst of yellow star like flowers, maybe rudbeckia / black eyed susan, in front of rich orange red crocosmia, and another shrub dotted with purple flowers. Planting next to the fence on a lane.

A patch bursting wuth wild flowers including poppies and cornflower, with a row of sunflowers spectating from the back row, in front of community woodland.

Friday joy
Plantings at the side of Redhall Park @redhallpark.bsky.social
They look glorious.

They were started by 1 person, now with @agordonsalive.bsky.social and others. The selfless care & effort that has gone into giving this gift to the community brings me so much restorative joy.

Thank you

Fly by of Ray’s top work looking lovely today. 🌹💐🌺🌷🥀🌼🪻z

Loads of ladybirds 🐞, different types of bees 🐝, hoverflies, wasps, and a host of other pollinators on all the wildflowers around the park at present. The knapweed flowers, hogweed seed heads, borage, and corn marigolds are popular with them.

An orange multi spotted harlequin with white either side of head

Red ladybird with 2 spots on thistles flower buds

A 7 spot- the classic ladybird

A little blck ladybird with 2 larger red spots front and side and 2 small spots futher back and closer to the back

The thistles are alive with ladybirds. In order of posting, my best guess as to which varieties.
Sadly the first is a harlequin (boo hiss), a 2-spot, a 7-spot, another 2-spot but this one is black with 4 spots (adalia 2-punctata quadrimaculata) look I didn't make up the naming rules!

A joy of yellow & purple flowers

Patch of mostly yellow flowers buzzing with bees and hoverflies

The wildflowers @redhallpark.bsky.social were absolutely buzzing today. Bees and hoverflies, as joyous a sound as any birdsong.

Saw several varieties of ladybird, scroll down to see them

We gave our new planting area a bit of love today. Wildflowers and sunflowers starting to come into flower. 🌼 lots of buzzing insects, even a holly blue butterfly 🦋

What arms testing is going on in Park’s and where? Are we talking guns and what else?

Ray, Euan, Marion, and Alan out weeding, checking the wildflowers, new shrubs, and planting some new flowers and more sunflowers. Lots of bulbs and more plants to come. Will be a lovely welcome to our community.

The swans passing through in formation today. Always a joy to see. 🦢🦢🦢🦢🦢🦢🦢🦢🦢

Would open up a quick walking route to the park for the good folks of Hutchison and Chesser.

We recognise that splendid park. 👍

The imposter invading the Water of Leith's banks Invasive plants and their long-term risks to our beloved river

Think you smell garlic? Think again. Think it doesn't matter? Think again!
@wolct.bsky.social #Edinburgh #biodiversity

www.edinburghinquirer.co.uk/p/the-impost...

Great tip on hedgehog care 👌

Great place to sit and enjoy all the flowers we’re now planting to create a proper welcoming to Longstone. Great support from @redhallpark.bsky.social 👏

Grant Swan for the power tools & William Sturgeon for arranging with him, and Alan Gordon for securing the funds from @edinburghcouncil.bsky.social community grant fund.

Fantastic community effort on this little upgrade project. Marion Preez for having the idea, Ray Donnelly for cleaning and painting the plinth, Julian for building and fitting the bench top (couple of bits still to fit tomorrow)

Out litter picking with @rosssmckenzie.bsky.social , sanding the old millennium woods sign and getting the plinth sorted. 🙏🏻

More progress weeding, painting, and sanding the millennium woods sign. We’ll be fixing the bench top onto the plinth tomorrow. Also a litter pick at 1pm starting at the war memorial. All welcome. 👍

Still 4 places available on this Nordic walking technique course starting next week, if you happen to know of anyone in the community who would be keen 😊 It’s free and just requires a couple of forms to be able to join. All equipment provided. Contact emily@elgt.org.uk or call her on 07943530806

Only the 2 of us there today digging & painting the plinth. Slow progress, but we will get there. Plinth had its first coat of paint. Managed to weed a small patch of ground and have planted some Wild Flower seeds in this patch. Luckily we are able to fill the watering cans from the Canal.

Planting up the area next to the wayfinding sign by the canal. Got some lovely shrubs from Inch Nursery with some of the community grant. When it looks like raining we’ll get the wildflower seeds in. Painting the base of the wayfinding sign & then fixing a bench top to it as well.

Glad to say the bullfinches are doing well in #ColintonDell Edinburgh and in nearby @redhallpark.bsky.social Redhall park.

Have seen them most days recently

We’ll be out planting up the area next to the canal on Sunday at 11am. We’ve got plants & lots of wildflower seed to sow if you fancy helping us. It’s going to look even more awesome this year. 😊 We’ll be giving the plinth a clean and a lick of paint in preparation for a new bench top too👌

Definitely hitting peak daffodil this week. The new ones up by the war memorial are a beautiful colour.