Last Sunday saw the latest volunteer day for the Hob Hey Wood Friends Group. The started damp and cold but the ambitious targets given to us by Ben of The Mersey Forest soon warmed us up.
The biggest job was to clear the border of the orchard field in readiness for the planting of a hedge. The hedge will increase biodersity in the area and form a boundary for the wood.
Here you can see me using a tool called a 'slasher' to clear the brambles and nettles from the area to be planted.
Here you can see the final result. It's not finished, there's more to remove and we need to dig out the bramble roots before planting the hedge. It looks a mess now, but when the new hedge is established, with native trees like hawthorn, it will look great!
We also cleared the steps from the bridlepath to the orchard field. They had become dangerously clogged with dead vegetation and soil.
Here you can see Chieffy admiring our hard work.
Even cleared, they're still not ideal as they are very uneven. Perhaps if we get some money we can get them replaced?
The final job was to fell some trees. We removed some large sycamore (an invasive, non-native tree) from the end of the bridlepath into the wood that was creating too much shade for plants to thrive.
You can see one of our young volunteers cutting down a tree supervised by Ben.
We will be removing more invasive sycamore to benefit the wood in future.
All in all, a productive, busy day. Hope to see you at the next one which is yet to be arranged. Full details will be given here and on the Facebook page.
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