Category: Miscellaneous

Work Party Dates for 2025-26

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This will be our 19th year of operation, so we have decided to rejig our days. The Orchard has the third SATURDAY in the month, while Down Grange Meadow has the second Sunday and the last SUNDAY in the month. Like last year, we have dropped our work parties on the Old Hedgerow. We have abandoned our Thursday afternoon sessions as we were not getting the volunteers we used to. Last year, the average age of the volunteers on these sessions was around 80!

We meet at the Homesteads Rd entrance – we start at 10.00 and go through until approximately 12.30. Some days, if we are feeling enthusiastic or have a task we want to finish, we may go – we have been known to finish at 13.30 or later! You can leave at any time during the session.

All tools are provided but you may want to bring your own gloves. We will provide “rigger” gloves if we expect you work with bramble or rose briar!

Categories: Events, Miscellaneous, Work Parties

Summer Work – Ragwort Pulling

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We have spent August pulling Common Ragwort (Senecio jacobaea). We have a lot of this and we will never remove all of it, not that we want to, as it is used as the food plant of the Cinnabar Moth (Tyria jacobaeae). It is also a useful late-season nectar source, for all kinds of bees, butterflies, moths, hoverflies, etc. We just want to limit the amount of seed it spreads, every little helps! It is a biennial, which means we must do this next year to be effective!

In August we spent over 24 hours of effort removing this plant, this is one of our “sacrifice areas” where we dump arrisings from work parties. While the photo below looks spectacular, the bulk of the pile was left over from a couple of corporate work parties we had last season removing Blackthorn or Sloe (Prunus spinosa)

One irritation is that just because you pull the plant in flower, does not stop it from producing seed. The left-hand side of the pile was pulled at the beginning of August, and that did not stop it from producing seed!

Categories: Miscellaneous