Today’s latest session made the most of warm sunshine, something that has definitely been in short supply recently!

Today was in The Glade area, concentrating on weeding, pond maintenance and tidying up our dead wood pile.

Our apple and pear tree trees are producing a healthy amount of fruits, although as can be seen they’re quite small. Weeds have made the most of the warm weather with Rosebay Willowherb taking over around 20 sq yards of soil just to the side of the grassed area in the glade.

Smaller both in size and numbers than pears in general.

One of the many pears now growing

More pear fruits rapidly growing.

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This morning’s volunteer session saw 2 new volunteers arrive and the return of 3 others.  The main focus of the day was to take the saplings we ordered and to plant these on the footpath leading from the top of our newly installed steps, leading towards The Glade.

Two committee members infront of an overgrown fence, before work started to plant the area

Volunteers filling in the cleared trench with newly planted saplings

Committee members planting our newly created thicket

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Last Saturday saw our first volunteer session of the new year. In addition to our usual plan of general weeding and making sure all is well inside the woodland, the main aim today was to plant 5 elm saplings which were supplied to us from The Conservation Foundation (www.conservationfoundation.co.uk) who have supplied us with 5 elm saplings as part of a project to see why some elms survived Dutch Elms Disease and to see if saplings which show disease resistance can be successfully grown.

The photos below show the saplings in their pots before they were planted and 2 volunteers getting ready to plant the saplings. The label shows the variety of the elm and the location from where it came from. Over the months we hope to provide updates of these saplings with their health.

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Our last volunteer session was on September 5th. Rain and dark clouds didn’t make a promising start, but we had 7 people today, including a first time volunteer! The focus today was to put in more steps for the internal path and more weeding and tidying up of the access routes inside the woodland in preparation for our Grand Public Opening on Sunday 4th October.

Volunteers standing in front of newly created steps.

The photos show volunteers standing in front of our newly constructed steps.  The steps now start near the recently added gate next to the Seren Park Gardens car part and are almost at the top of the woodland, where the topography flattens out.

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Today’s volunteer day was the first of 2 planned sessions for June, taking advantage of the warm weather and to build on by far the most important activity the organisation has seen for some time.  It has been our aim since we started to have improved access facilities to the woodland from the western side, and as a result of many hours of planning, today marked the first volunteer day where we can use our newly installed gate for access.

Volunteers going off to work!

Our Sunday morning session started at the Lasseter Close side of the woodland.  On a hazy and humid morning we assessed that further weeding, path clearance and additional removal on non-native species would be today’s aims.

Part of this morning’s activity involved the further removal of non-native species.  As the woodland is surrounded on all sides by people’s gardens, it’s inevitable that plants sometimes find their way in to the woodland area.  Some may have arrived accidentally, others may have been deliberately planted for ornamental affect.

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