Thursday 24th April 2025 - The day started rather dull and sombre looking but it ended with a bright showing of Sun as the volunteers gathered to carry out vegetation control at Carew Manor Wetlands.
As the brush-cutter began a low cut to the main grassland the team, divided between the main site and the island set about some needed weeding of Nettles, Hog-Weed and Cleavers in the ongoing fight to get a more diverse mix of desired wildflowers to spread their range.
Tuesday 22nd April 2025 - An abundance of sunshine was out for a smaller team today as work straddled two sites Kimpton Balancing Pond and a return visit to finish up last weeks work at Belmont Pastures.
Carrying out an extensive litter pick at the often used thoroughfare of Kimpton, both sites then received a low grass cut (minding the emerging wildflowers) to allow desired species a fair shot of competition before they get drowned beneath thickets of grass and more robust vegetation.
Thursday 17th April 2025 - A beautifully sunny day seemed extra bright with the appearance of a staggering amount of Cowslips on the teams first stop on a two site visiting day.
Kicking activities off at The Avenue Primary Academy the volunteers were impressed with the reclaimed space to work with following the removal of the wooden walkway and duck house. As a dextrously handled brush-cutter and lawn-mowing got going amongst the Cowslip speckled grassland the remainder of the team took on the tasks of digging out emerging Bramble, popping self seeded saplings, clearing the odd trace of stones and rubble, and preparing the area sitting below the former boardwalk of straggling Ivy ready for a bit of wildflower seeding.
The latter part of the day saw the squad move to the nearby Belmont Pastures where a spot of interpretation board restoration was achieved along with grass cutting to the Northern most tip and obligatory Bramble trimming.
Tuesday 15th April 2025 - The damp spitting rain of a start didn't fill the volunteers with hope achieving a productive days work but they were soon proved wrong as the day dried and started to warm up.
Working at Carshalton Road Pastures as the tractor headed off to carry out more mowing to maybe just shy of half the site the remainder of the team battled with the ever present Bramble creeping from the borders and pushing onto the grassland.
With a very successful deployment of the Tree-popper some truly bulbous Bramble roots were unearthed like the fist sized one in our last photo!
Thursday 10th April 2025 - The sunshine took a while to get going for the team with a new volunteer bolstering the ranks at a verdant looking Anton Crescent Wetland.
Whilst one division of the team started the day loading the trailer with a bulky load of Blackthorn harvested a visit or two back ready for a run to the green waste dump those remaining on site kept busy with selected brushcutting to the grassland (weaving between densely gathered emerging wildflowers) and cutting back of ever present Bramble weaving through trees and stretching into the grassland.
Once returned from the disposal run it was on with the waders as the team entered the waters to bolster the Geese deterrent measures (to prevent grazing on the grassland) removing the thoroughly rotten wooden panels created about 3 years ago for stretches of more robust wire stock netting that should last considerably longer.
