A great group of volunteers gathered at the woodlands on 1 March. Many regulars were joined by some new faces including two keen young visitors ready to help out with all that needed doing. Work took place on two main sites – completing planting started in February at Lasseter Place, and new work on the Tom Smith Escarpment.

The Lasseter Place based group unearthed a huge amount of rubble whilst clearing more planting space below the recently constructed maintenance path there. Most of the “heeled in” whips left over from the February session were planted, apart from a few Field Maples which were put back into the ground for another time. Lots of bulbs were planted too – including English Bluebells, Wood Anemones, Wild Garlic, Snowdrops, and Wild Daffodils.

As part of our work on saving rainfall for the pond, we have been building a “water harvester” system. Several square metres of tarpaulin will channel water in to a sunken water butt. When full, this will overflow in to our pond. We are actively looking at using our existing roof surfaces to capture any rainfall in to other water butts for future watering of our plants.

At the Tom Smith Escarpment some great bank stabilisation work was done with large logs staked-in to create planting niches, more tree planting and further spreading of wood-chip to surface the upper steps and paths. All planting of Snake’s Head Fritillary and replacing a failed Willow whip by the pond in the Main Glade. A very productive morning’s work with masses of energy given to the many and varied tasks by our amazing volunteers – heartfelt thanks to all of you for your time, skills, and commitment to the wellbeing of Westcombe Woodlands.