June Volunteer Day

Thanks to all that came last week for another great day in the woods!  Prepared with scythes, billhooks, weed whackers, sickles and more, we showed the bracken who’s in charge around here.

The morning was spent just off the public footpath, in an area around a towering dead birch tree.   This area already has some new plantings in it, and more are planned later in the year so we wanted to open it up. We now have four scythes – having received a brand new shiny (and very sharp!) one last week – so a group tackled the long grass and nettles and young brambles.  Others used slashers, billhooks and weed whackers to tackle the bracken and more woody brambles. 

Another group roamed the site, map in hand, locating all of our newly planted trees and shrubs (around 20 in total). The map proved necessary as many were hidden behind long vegetation.  The volunteers were tasked with open up the protective fences around each planting, and having a jolly good weed inside the protected area and about a 1-2m radius around it also.

Freshly brewed coffee was the order of the day when we returned to the roundhouse for a lunchbreak, and we all re-fuelled ready for more of the same activities in the afternoon.

After lunch we quickly finished the initial area we had been focussing on and volunteers spread throughout the site to continue the good work along the whole of the public footpath, under and around the handkerchief tree, and also at the top of the site near the iron age pathway.

We took care throughout the day to look for signs of ground-nesting birds, and to leave any areas that we thought might have nesting birds in them. 

If you like the look of what we do and would like to join our next volunteer day on Sunday 18 July then please email volunteer@tortwortharboretum.org to reserve a place.