Spring was definitely in the air for the woodland’s 2nd volunteer day of the year. Blue skies and sunshine greeted the 9 volunteers in the morning.
Tools of the trade!
This morning work’s main aim on the Maze Hill side of the woodland was to undertake weed control. Previous volunteer days have shown that within just 4 or 5 weeks bramble and common nettle seeds are widely present in the top soil, and that digging over these areas allow fresh plants to germinate.
The day started with being unusually warm and sunny when we arrived at the Maze Hill entrance, and ended up in torrential rain. Committee members arrived with several dozen native woodland plant plugs and several dozen plant plugs that are attractive for bees, which were generously funded by our grants. Our plan for the day was to clear an area to the south of the orchard and get the plants in to the ground before colder weather sets in. The photos below show the pluglets before they were put in to the ground.
One of the trays of plants, ready to be planted.
Greater Knapweed pluglets.
Betony plants, all looking healthy.
Despite the ominous looking clouds and unfavourable weather conditions, this didn’t deter a dozen or so of Westcombe Woodlands’ volunteers to head to Lasseter Place for an early morning start. Within moments of the 10:00 start a huge crash of thunder and heavy rain resulted in the team taking refuge under the roof of one of the volunteer’s garage.
Today’s well-attended volunteer day saw activity in “the glade” area on the Maze Hill side of the Woodland. Removal of large quantities of willowherb around the pear and fruit trees allowed us to give the trees a much needed watering. Afterwards some 2 dozen sackloads of generously donated mulch to the bases of the trees to help retain moisture and prevent weeds appearing. While undertaking weeding, we saw several small pears had formed on our young trees already after only being planted for 1 year. The photo shows a small pear fruit, no more than 4 or 5 cm in length.
This photo shows how The Glade area looked after several man-hours of weeding and applying mulch around the base of the trees. While weeding, one of the volunteers found a small, self-sown oak sapling that must have arrived from one of the local oak trees. We carefully weeded around this sapling and placed 3 logs around it in order to highlight its importance for future volunteer days.
