Friends Of Montgomery Street Park

Litter picking - Sunday 31 May 2026, 12.00 to 13.00 hours – Come along! Please join in with our end of the month litter picking. Regular, always fixed for last Sunday in month. All welcome! Hot / cold drinks and snacks available!

🌳 Imagine Montgomery Street Park in another two or three years… 🌳

More trees.
More flowers.
More wildlife.
More community events.
More beautiful corners to sit in.
More children loving their local green space.
More biodiversity projects.
More volunteering.
More ideas becoming reality.

That future does not depend on the Council alone.

It depends on local people continuing to care about this little park and giving what time, energy, creativity or skills they can.

The amazing thing is that so much of what people already love about Montgomery Street Park came from exactly that kind of community effort 💚

Friends of Montgomery Street Park AGM
📍 Renroc Café
📅 Tuesday 2 June
🕡 6.30–8pm

We’d love to welcome some new faces onto the committee and into the wider Friends group as we start thinking about the next chapter for the park.

Come along, have a drink, hear what’s happening and help us imagine what this park could become 🌸

A proper grafting volunteer session yesterday with 11 of us, tough jobs that gave us a bit of a work-out but we got a lot done!
We love welcoming the energy of new people joining and the great dynamic this brings to the group and I am not surprised people enjoy meeting our fantastic, friendly group of regular local volunteers! Thanks so much again for your hard work, expertise & problem solving skills yesterday and to the girls who help coordinate the teas & coffees.

We removed the wire mesh from our wild flower patches which was a lot tougher than you might imagine, thanks to the volunteers for persevering with this (definitely living up to the Leith motto). We will be sowing more seeds again and we hope to leave space for any existing plants to emerge...3rd time lucky hopefully with the wild flowers which are also proving a challenge but we persevere. 🤞We made sure to recycle the tin cans & stored away the wire mesh securely.

We then moved over to clear and prepare a patch for the extension of the hedge area by the railings at Elgin Street where we hope to plant Hawthorn. You can see the difference many hands make in the before & after pictures! I remember when we planted the first hedge saplings end of 2024 I believe, it really doesn't take long for growth to make a difference.💚

Always good fun & chat as we complete our tasks for the day and we finished with teas, coffees & a well earned break & blether at the end. 🫖☕
Excited to see some of you again at our AGM on 2/6. Our next volunteering session will be the 6th June and poster also attached with dates for the rest of the year! We look forward to seeing you there! I hope you get to enjoy the sunshine in our beautiful park in the meantime! 🌞

🌸 These alliums were planted by local volunteers and previous generations of Friends committee members who gave a bit of their time to make the park brighter, greener and more welcoming for everyone else.

Years later, they’re still coming back every spring. 💜

This Saturday’s volunteer session (10.30–12.00) will be a slightly less dramatic affair than the Great Pond Construction Project 😄 but there’s still plenty to do:

🌱 preparing for the extension of the new hedge at Elgin Street
🌿 weeding around the playpark trees and entrances
🪴 tidying the new planting beds
🗑️ litter picking
📋 cleaning the notice board

And possibly some new planting too, depending on what the Council nursery can provide this week.

Tea, coffee and biscuits afterwards as always ☕🍪

REMEMBER that the Friends of Montgomery Street Park AGM is coming up on Tuesday 2 June at Renroc Café (6.30–8pm).

A lot of what people now enjoy in the park exists because local people stepped forward over the years and got involved. We’ll be looking for new committee members and volunteers to help carry things forward into the next chapter of the park’s story.

Hope to see some of you on Saturday 🌳

🌳 THIS PARK DIDN’T IMPROVE BY ACCIDENT 🌳

Over the last few years, local volunteers and committee members have helped transform Montgomery Street Park.

Together we’ve:

🛝 replaced the entire playpark
🧒 added new equipment for under-threes
🛣️ pushed for replacement paths and surface repairs
🌸 created new planting and wildflower areas
🌳 planted trees and protected biodiversity
🪵 built habitat areas and insect hotels
🧹 organised monthly litter picks
🌿 created our fortnightly volunteer sessions
🎃 run hugely popular Halloween events
📰 produced Parklife magazine, written and illustrated by local people
🪑 campaigned for benches, lighting improvements and investment
🤝 worked with the Council, local councillors, volunteers and businesses
📣 represented the park at Community Council meetings
☕ and answered countless emails, ideas, problems, requests and questions along the way

All of this happened because local people gave a bit of their time, energy and creativity to a place they care about.

Now we need more people to help carry that forward.

Friends of Montgomery Street Park AGM
📍 Renroc Café, Montgomery Street
📅 Tuesday 2 June
🕡 6.30–8pm

We’ll be electing committee members and postholders, and several current members expect to step down over the coming year.

You do not need loads of free time, special expertise or years of experience. Just an interest in helping keep this little park punching well above its weight.

All welcome.

☕🍰 VOLUNTEERS WANTED 🍰☕

Our friends at RNIB Hillside Crescent are looking for volunteers to help with their community café, supporting the blind and partially sighted community.

In particular, they would love to hear from anyone who enjoys a bit of home baking 👩‍🍳🧁

RNIB have very kindly supported Friends of Montgomery Street Park by hosting some of our meetings, so we’re very happy to share this.

If you’re interested in helping, please contact Neil Atkinson at:

📧 [email protected]

Exciting news!! 🥳 Montgomery street park now has it's very own tiny pond!! 👏🐸🏞️ Thanks so much to all our volunteers who came on Saturday (at least 13) to help install our wee water feature and for all the other jobs undertaken at the park. And thanks too to our youngest toddler volunteer and Father who helped us with the ceremonial adding of the water to the pond which we celebrated with our teas, coffees and some delicious chocolate shortbread home-baking by one of our regular volunteers. 🙏

For any curious park users, the actual dimensions of the pond are approximately 86 x 65 cm and the current depth of water is about 10 cm, so very small and shallow but may have a big impact! With more than two thirds of freshwater species relying on pond habitats, apparently one of the best things that you can do to add wildlife value to your garden or neighbourhood is to install a wildlife pond. We are very excited to see how it will develop and we have noticed the park's pigeon community have taken a liking to it already 😅

We also got a lot more weeding and litter-picking done and we cleared away old signage and added our brand new posters with dates for volunteering from June-Dec 2026, we are moving to the 1st and 3rd Saturday in the month but our next session will be on the 23rd May as planned originally. Thanks so much to our volunteers who have offered to help with the teas & coffees, we are hoping people can BYO cups/mugs but we'll always have a few spares to hand!

With the theme 'Take Action' for Mental Health Awareness Week this week, I am certainly noticing a positive impact on my wellbeing getting involved with lovely, local, like-minded people in the community working towards a shared worthwhile cause outdoors! If this might appeal to you too, why don't you join us next time. Our AGM is also on the 2nd of June, this will also be a great opportunity to get involved with Friends of Montgomery Street Park activities and we could really use the extra members! We'd love to see you there! More details to follow! Watch this space!

This Saturday in the park… we’re building a pond 👀🐸

After repeated negotiations with physics, we’ve accepted that the current pond simply does not believe in holding water 😄

So this weekend’s volunteer session will include installing a brand new pond liner and (hopefully) creating something a little more… aquatic.

Also on the list:
🧹 Sweeping the endless supply of twigs, bark and mysterious play-park debris
🌱 Weeding around tree pits and the new hedge
🗑 Litter picking
📌 Removing old notices and ties from railings
🪧 Putting up fresh posters
🎨 Removing stickers and graffiti from signs

🕥 Saturday, 10.30–12.00
☕ Tea, coffee and biscuits afterwards, as always

Come along for half an hour or the full session.

Happy Friday & May Day today 🥳 we celebrate the vitality of Spring & we are ready to welcome the start of summer soon! A bit delayed with sharing about our volunteer session last Saturday, another great, productive few hours in the park with at least 18 volunteers & contributors and can I say, our volunteer style game is strong and getting stronger! I'm coming back next time in trendy dungarees 😅 We love welcoming new people who have moved to area and really enjoyed having you as part of the session and community.

We were delighted to sort the burned grass patch which has now been composted and seeded. We're making progress with cleaning the steps and loving how volunteers have been discussing the best strategy for this and bringing their own brushes. We managed to get lots of weeding done too and sweeping of the play park. Some volunteers turned over the compost heap and others did some litter-picking and a bit of planting of wood sorrel and ferns mostly around the thicket area where we were also identifying some spotted dead nettle and garlic mustard! We enjoyed teas and coffees after and some of the conversation was around the lack of doc leaves here for nettle stings compared to where some of us grew up in Ireland and other places, if anyone knows why this is, answers on a postcard 😅

If you might like to be part of this fantastic work or to help shape plans for the future, if you have ideas of what new park or volunteer projects could be undertaken, we'd love to have you join us and to hear your views!

Next volunteer session is the 9th May and all are welcome to attend the AGM on the 2nd of June at 6:30, venue TBC, stayed tuned!

🛝 Something new for the littlest park users…

Our new toddler slide is now in place and being enjoyed and it feels like a really lovely moment to mark.

It’s the final piece of new play equipment (for now), and part of everything that’s been happening in the park over the past year - all driven by a small group of local volunteers giving their time, energy and ideas.

Which brings us to the next step…

📣 Friends of the Park – AGM & Committee Meeting
🗓 Tuesday 2 June
🕡 6.30–8.00pm
📍 Local Venue TBC

This is your chance to:
• hear what’s been achieved over the past year
• help shape plans for what comes next
• get involved if you’d like to

We’ll also be electing a Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary and Treasurer and we really do need new people to step forward.
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The park only continues to improve if there’s an active group behind it.

If you (or your family) have benefited from what’s been happening here, and you feel you might have the capacity to get involved, we’d genuinely love to hear from you.

You don’t need any special background — just some time, some energy, and a willingness to play a part. There’s a role for everyone.
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More details to follow — but for now, save the date.