This year, with the help of five volunteers, the raised beds in the orchard have had a good maintenance. Weeding first, then bulb planting and finally strulching, a superior form of mulching!
Autumn harvests – potatoes and dandelions!
Perivale park provided supper yesterday. Potatoes planted in the raised beds were ready for harvesting.†
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Perivale and Pear Tree Parks Bistro – an update
Good news to report. The refurbishment of the old cafe has started and will take about a month. Apart from the restaurant, kitchen and toilets, a new community room for perhaps 20 people will be opened.
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Autumn oranges. Acorns and Crab apples
If you get up close, this year Crab Apples (Variety Red sentinel) and the acorns are revealing splendid, almost translucent autumn colours.
Hops Hops everywhere!
About five or so years back, we noticed a hop plant with its roots on the banks of Coston’s brook and climbing up to the footbridge across the brook in the park. Boy has it spread!
Friends of Perivale Park: Annual General Meeting 2025. Tuesday 23 September, 2025, 19.30.
This will be the fifh AGM we have held since our formation in 2020. If you want the back story to some of the events happening in the park and surrounding areas, why not join us by Zoom. If you send an email to friends@perivalepark.london, you will get the joining link and a copy of this years Chair’s report by email.
Observations in the park – by someone with an acute eye for nature.
Neil is a frequent visitor to Perivale Park, and he sees plants (and invertebrates) that most of us do not. When I met him the other day, I asked if he had observed anything more unusual. This is his emailed reply: Continue reading “Observations in the park – by someone with an acute eye for nature.”
The raised beds in the orchard: community gardeners
There are four raised beds in the orchard area – and we have increasingly noticed community gardeners doing good deeds in them. So thanks for the recent weeding, and the sowing of as yet unidentified seedlings! If you know who it was, ask them what they are!
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Brent River Park 50th Anniversary Celebration: Morris dancing, English bluebells and lots more.
Perivale park is part of the greater Brent River park, a concept that was created 50 years ago by Luke FitzHerbert. Here are some photos of the celebration, which happened on Sunday 29th June.
A riot of colour in June.
June is of course for roses, and they are looking absolutely splendid in the orchard garden at the moment. I even got a comment about them being better than the ones in the Queen Mary garden, Regent’s park!
The raised beds in the orchard garden- Iris and allium.
The most regular plantings of flowers in the park are in the four raised beds in the orchard garden (not withstanding the adjacent meadow which has just been planted with a mix which includes poppies and cornflowers for later in the year).
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Update on the Imperial-CURB Run-off project
This is a one year project to measure water run-off along the entire river Brent corridor. There are four sampling points in Perivale park itself and a total of 99 samples along the entire length have been collected so far and sent to Imperial College for analysis.
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The Perivale Park meadow 2025 – a blue theme!
The meadow has been rotavated and is currently as I write this being seeded with the following mix:
Isabella Plantation- Richmond park
Following on from one of the spring highlights of west London, here is another. The Azalea and Rhododendron glade in Richmond park, known as the Isabella plantation. This is a movie of the famous still pond in the centre of the plantation.
Perivale wood 2025: bluebells, celandine, stitchwort and cuckoo flowers.
This year there is no public open day viewing of the bluebells in Perivale Wood, so I thought I would show some of the highlights here instead.
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News on Park food – Pear Tree Park Bistro.
Following the closure of the old golf club cafe last December, news now comes that a new food outlet is planning to open this summer in the same premises – the Pear Tree Park Bistro offering modern European cuisine. It is hoped it will have longer opening hours than the original cafe (which closed by 3-4 pm), and also retaining breakfasts on the menu. There are plans to expand the seating area for diners and to open a community room at the back of the building. Indeed, the ethos of this bistro will be the community and engagement with it.
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Brent-Imperial Run-off Project.
A major one-year scientific project is starting which will involve sampling the waters of the river Brent and some of its tributaries. This is a collaboration between the Environmental Research group at Imperial College, CURB (Clean Up River Brent) and around 30 teams of volunteers. The project aims to analyse rain-water run-off immediately before and after “heavy-rain” to establish the levels of pollutants along the Brent corridor.
Brent Riverside track.
Thanks to a lot of clearing out of previously inaccessible undergrowth, a delightful new footpath has been created on the north bank of the River Brent as it flows through what is now Pear Tree park. This complements the existing footpath on the south bank, although the new one only runs along part of the length of the river in the park.
Tree planting in Pear Tree Park
Wild vegetables!
We have recently returned from Rhodes, where we discovered that many restaurants have something called “Wild Greens” on their menus.
A good year for – Cob nuts?
Every year, starting around now, one can watch out to see if any particular species seems like its going to have a good year. So the first of these I have spotted are the cob nuts in the orchard garden
Requited love – a romantic story of the night.
It started about 2-3 weeks ago when throughout the night I heard the call of a bird, just outside the bedroom window so it seemed, or at very least in our garden. To confirm my supposition, I whipped out my bird identification app (Merlin) and identified it as a Little owl.
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Bright sun and frost on Horsenden Hill.
The first proper freeze of the year is always worth a photo or two. In this instance, not of Perivale Park itself but of the nearby Horsenden hill.
Tree Watering Champions.
Signs of a new project for Perivale park (or more accurately the surrounding streets) have appeared. Called “Trees for Streets“, it encourages local residents to go out and water trees planted in Ealing streets (there is one for parks as well).
The Glade Lane Canalside Park Ponds.
A little over a year ago, I reported that the Glade Lane canalside park had acquired its new and impressive mounds. A year later, there is a further addition – a set of nice interlinked ponds, which when settled in and matured in a few years time promises to look very attractive.
The 2024 edition of the morning sky over Perivale Park
At a time of year when most of the colour has gone from the park, one has to look to the sky. Here is how it appeared this morning at around 07.30.
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The last of the autumn colour: Cosmos
The meadow “frame” planted earlier this year has finally brought the Cosmos to the fore. They have been going for a little while now, and will indeed last a little longer!
More seasonal activity!
The entire year has been wet! And so to the 2024 vintage fungii – which are now emerging in force.
Autumn colour in the park: Spindle.
Walking along the Capital ring path in the path, one comes across a collection of flowering bushes with spectacular pink and orange fruits and red leaves.
Fast-charge battery trains next to Perivale Park
Following on from the previous post of interesting things happening in the proximity of Perivale Park, here is another.
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