The peat which has been exposed by fires and errosion etc is a problem both in terms of climate change and in terms of the cost of it getting into hte water supply system. This first photograph shows some planting in an area of bare peat
Roughly once a year - usually in late winter early spring the group has historically held a "megabash" - getting a larger than normal group together to attach the perrenial rhodadendron problem.
This year was slightly different the National Trust in the high Peak (near Edale / Hayfield) have been working on a project attempting to revegitate the peat. The plan was 30,000 cotton grass plants over 2 years - we spent two "normal" sundays on this earlier in the year. As it was a big project our megabash was held in the autumn and we had a group of nearly 20 people up on Kinderscout working on this.
Over the course of the weekend approximately 20000 plants went in which completed the plan for this year. There are a few more for the spring then the area will be monitored so that the effectiveness of the process can be assessed for future reference. The plants arrived in trays of 60 - there is an empty one in the foreground of the second photo, in the third photo there are two stacks of these empty trays visible - staked down to prevent them blowing away. Over the weekend we accounted for about three to four hundred trays and left a number of stacks like this behind for later collection. In the background of the third photo is an area of established cotton grass - quite a contrast to the bare peat.
The cotton grass grows best in the damper areas, and can grow in water - the higher areas will need to be planted with heather or will have to wait for nature to recover.
We had wonderful weather once the fog cleared on sunday morning - which certainly made getting to work interesting!
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