Mossland Restoration.

Friend A had invited me to Princes Park Garden Centre, Irlam, they were having an open day today. A former day centre for adults with specialist needs it is a charitable endeavour, largely run on a voluntary basis, and providing adults with learning difficulties an opportunity to spend their time doing something worthwhile and structured, and in a sociable context. This year it has won the Kings Award for Voluntary Service, and two of the volunteers have been down to Buckingham Palace and met the King and Queen. There is a lot of pride in the achievement (see extra).

The horticultural work here has in the last few years been linked to the work of Lancashire Wildlife Trust on Little Woolden and Chat Mosses, which adjoin Irlam. The Mosses are being restored, and at the Centre they propagate cotton grasses, cross-leaved heath, common heather, sphagnum mosses, bog rosemary, bog cranberry, cowberry, sundews and other bogland plants. Their other clients are Natural England (which has recently acquired land adjoining that owned by the LWT) and the National Trust (who are restoring Marsden Moor near Huddersfield). There is a lot of innovative work going on, including the involvement of Manchester University ( how best to propagate sphagnum) and Chester Zoo (who have a project to reintroduce the large heath butterfly, known locally as the manchester argus).

The image is of one of the polytunnels, most of the seedlings growing here are cotton grass.

The work going on at the centre is really impressive. In a world currently full of so much negativity it was uplifting to talk to people here and see the good work being done.