Elm, Sycamore & Laurel

December 2022 and into the new year.

The next three months consisted mainly of cutting and clearing trees.

The first were sycamores in a area by the east woods. The larger trees were chain-sawed and cut into logs, whilst the branches were lopped and heaped into piles for chipping.

There was a really cold spell in the middle of the month (-6c first thing!).

We then moved across to the west woods for more of the same (chain-sawing, logging & lopping). This time it was elm trees which had been marked red for identification.

2023 began with a day of removing ivy from the trees along the fence-line on St Faiths Road.

This usually involves cutting out a metre section around each trunk, but we couldn't resist pulling down as much of vines as possible. Ben and I were covered in bits of bark, leaf and dust!

There was one tree we couldn't manage as it will need a chain-saw to cut through the thick vine!.

The following week we planted out new bed in the picnic area. This was virtually a repeat of shrub planting carried out in Feb' 22. There was dogwood, rose, June berry, flowering currant, mock orange, winter honeysuckle, wayfaring tree & wild service tree.

The last two weeks of January and beginning of February involved the cutting, clearing and chipping of laurel. This work covered various sites across the park and will enable us to carry out new planting in the future.

Again, the larger trees were chain-sawed and cut into logs, and the branches were arranged into neat piles for chipping. The logs will be taken back to the lodge and stored for drying out.

Before our next job, there was another visit to the Victorian pond to clear out the usual bottles, cans, wrappers and branches (what lovely people). This time there was even a traffic cone!

We needed extendable nets & ropes, even lashing two of the poles together to get the reach. Unfortunately, this took us most of the morning.

Above: Pond clearing paraphernalia.

The end of February saw us clearing a dense patch of shrubs/brambles etc, ready for fresh planting later. We also managed a quick trip to the recreation ground to plant some beech hedging whips along the fence-line by the cricket field.