Pender's Park - Thornbury

My first post takes a look at Pender's Park. It is situated around 100 metres from my home and roughly covers a block of space in Thornbury, Melbourne.
 Facilities include: toilets, basketball court and play equipment.

I moved into a flat near Pender’s Park in February this year, I have sought refuge there on a couple of occasions and have recently been appreciating it much more. At first glance it seems somewhat unorganized past the neatly angled corner beds.  The trees are in neat lines along the outer edges of the park as the photos show, but are scattered more randomly throughout the bowels of the park. At first this was a bit of a turn-off for me, being used to the immaculately presented and neatly ordered parks in the inner city.

After thinking about my first reaction to the layout I began to warm to this less rigid layout. Why should trees all be lined up in rows? Why should nature be perfectly ordered the way I want it to be? On a cold winter's night the park takes on the air of a ghostly wood in my eyes. While i might walk through Carlton gardens and wonder at the beauty of nicely ordered oaks and maples, Pender's Park speaks of a rougher beauty. Something which might be found if you left the confinements of city life behind. For isn't this the purpose of a park in the first place? 

This is not to say that there isn't a hint of order in any case, be it the nicely angled beds planted at the corners or the straight lines of palms along the perimeter. Pender's Park has become a safe haven for me when things are tough at home or i simply need a break from the constant clatter of tram wheels along High Street. I did a small survey of 10 people i saw in the park over the last couple of months and have made up a couple of graphs to show that i am not the only one who values parks as a place to retreat and contemplate the more meaningful decisions in life or simply to exercise in the presence of a living ecosystem. 

I have taken a look at the 'master plan' for Pender's Park and was surprised to see that the new direction will be for a more ordered arrangement of trees and creation of more open areas within the park.

Here is a link for the plans:

  http://www.darebin.vic.gov.au/Files/Penders_Park_Masterplan_Design.pdf