Tuesday 28th April 2026 - It was a dull and windy beginning to the day that matured to a sunny finish for todays gathering of a team getting to grips with more activities on the sprawling Roundshaw Downs.
Deciding to concentrate efforts on the North-Eastern fringes of the site (being one of the lesser worked areas), the squad spent the day widening approaches for the contractors to get thorough access when the Autumnal full meadow cuts begin (by popping emergent Blackthorn and trimming fallen Tree limbs), shaving off Bramble edges, weeding rosettes of Ragwort and other undesirable species from the grassland and hay-cutting select parcels of land.
Thursday 23rd April 2026 - Beddington Park. We marked a very special day celebrating 20 years of our most long-standing, reliable and knowledgeable volunteer. What a role model!
And we enjoyed the beautifully decorated home-made cake of course.
Thursday 23rd April 2026 - The team numbers swelled with the addition of two more new volunteers as a Sunny day of work got underway at Beddington Park.
With the main bulk of work occurring at the Lakeside Meadow the larger portion of the team, as the main photo attests, could be found on their knees whilst the tractor looped around them making a spring grass cut as they weeded out Thistles and Docks and planted up a small batch of Cowslips.
Further from the main site of activities the remainder of the volunteers set about rationalising the spread of a couple of compost heaps before the tractor arrived with a fresh batch of cuttings and then made a short walk to the Stock Pond where the periphery of the remaining Bramble was pushed back from the fence and bankside trees to neaten things up.
Tuesday 21st April 2026 - With a work experience student out with the fair sized turnout of a team, the volunteers spent the day in the Western boundary of Roundshaw Downs.
Even though the day remained bright a cutting wind blew across the downs as the team sprang into action.
As the Tractor and flail collector kept busy cutting the surrounding parcels of grassland the rest of the team got to grips with liberating trees and a general push-back of Bramble on the grass edges, weeded Cleavers and more Bramble from the midst's of a large patch of Wood Avens and playing somewhat of a long game dug out as much emergent Hog Weed as they could on the grassland to give the more desirable species a fighting chance of spreading.
Tuesday 16th April 2026 - Todays outing for the team saw them carrying out works along the new Wandle Public Open Space adjacent to Wandle Valley Wetland as well as visiting Spencer Road Wetland to clear a bit of large and small scale littering.
With an early division of the team both ends of the Wandle Valley development got a thorough picking over of undesirable plant species from in the midst of rarer species that have been planted up and seeded.
Moving to Spencer Road once work had been completed, larger items of fly tipped rubbish were hauled from the flowing waters of the Wandle whilst smaller specimens and a couple of larger tree trunk sections were removed from the weir before a full blockage could develop.
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