Park Stewardship: Adding compost, mulching, and pruning — Cuifen Pui

Would the ordinary person in the street be willing to make compost in public parks, and then add the finished compost to help rejuvenate green spaces in the park? A year ago, I was hopeful, but I could not tell you if people would do so because I didn’t know of any local examples.

Having done this twice with fellow Compost Stewards of Bukit Gombak Park, I can tell you that individuals welcome such activities and will step forward with the right amount of training, guidance, and opportunity.

With some of the Compost Stewards who joined me for the activity

With grey clouds looming overhead, six of us added compost and mulch to a patch of Ixora plants and nearby trees, and did some plant pruning. Most of us live in the area. One travelled from another part of Singapore to do this with us.

An example of an area where we added compost and mulch

It helped that relevant people at the local public agencies (NParks and NEA) coordinated to set aside some bags of swept-up leaves, even though these were not the most suitable and needed to be shredded first.

An example of the bag that we used for mulching. The leaves were very big and were shredded first before being used as mulch material.

It helped to have the support of the park manager to organise this activity and to know that various local public agencies are exploring ways to nurture park stewardship.

Many park visitors walked by, and thankfully(?) no one asked why we were pruning plants. A familiar neighbour called out to me and gave us a thumbs-up.

Pruning of plants

We were done in less than an hour, having used up finished compost from a single community-sized pile.

Harvesting of finished compost from a community-sized compost pile

A closer look at the community-made compost

We didn’t have to do any watering for the skies opened up soon after.

I look forward to coming back soon!

The stretch that we worked on!

This article was originally published at https://medium.com/@cpui8161.

About the Writer

Cuifen Pui (Instagram, LinkedIn)

Cuifen, a compost artisan and sustainable lifework coach, draws inspiration from climate action and regenerative ecosystems. With food as a lens, she empowers individuals to take simple actions that help shape a thriving world ecosystem. Cuifen co-creates Food Citizen, an educational venture that helps city-based individuals transition to more intentional and regenerative ways of living. She also co-leads two passion experiments: Project Black Gold and Boon Lay Nature Garden.