Leaders Pete
The venue for this task was the Cory recycling site near Hempsted. Although it isn't one of the better known beauty spots, a dozen willing volunteers were soon gathered next to the site office. There were a couple of new faces, and we stood and chatted for a while on this mild spring morning. Unfortunately Pete didn't realise that, Jane, the manager of the Severnside Project, had arrived before us and was already hard at work!
Jane soon spotted where her workforce was hiding, and showed us the job for the day. We walked to a belt of woodland, created some years ago to screen the "tip" from the village of Hempsted. The bare rows of poplar trees gave a poor habitat for wildlife, so it was intended to clear them in stages and replace them with a variety of native species. When we arrived, the site was strewn with felled trees, which the contractor was supposed to have removed! So our first task was to saw these up and move the logs and branches out of the way.
By lunchtime we had
cleared a good area, and Jane began putting out a forest of bamboo
canes, each labelled with a flag to show which type of tree to
plant. Then we took a selection of healthy young saplings and
set about matching them to the flags. This was quite a sociable
activity, with lots of swapping of trees, as we tried to keep
up with Jane. Luckily the ground was soft to dig, and the trees
had compost 'plugs' on the roots, so they could be planted quickly
and easily. We did scratch our heads a bit over the two types
of oak tree, and learned that a guelder rose is not the same as
a 'rose rose'.
Thanks to everyone's efforts, a scene of fallen trees and bare ground had been transformed into new woodland. It was satisfying to see the difference we had made in just one day.
