Rhody bash at Lyme Park on Sunday 3rd April 2016

A lovely day and a great turn-out! 18 of us started the day along with Dan the Ranger and Dan the Lyme DofE volunteer.

We moved our cars from the main car park to Knott car park before walking up the steps to the ridge on the left of West Park Drive and walked towards Paddock Cottage.

Once there, we could see the only clump of rhody still waiting to be cut down and burned.

the last clump of rhododendron ponticum

MNTV have worked in this area and along West Park drive for many years, as well as other volunteer groups, cutting down the rhody and burning it, so it was quite amazing to find today that there was so little left.
We 'foolishly' thought that we'd be able to clear it by the end of the day but there was more than we could finish despite having 2 fires on the go!

The reason for wanting to clear the rhody is to return this area to native woodland by planting oak, lime, wild cherry, rowan, hazel, birch with an understory of hawthorn, holly and black thorn once the rhody has been cleared - this is to support the natural regeneration of the woodland. Planting up the woodland should, hopefully, encourage birds such as lesser red polls, garden warblers and tree pipits. Although the rhody will try to grow back, it will be sprayed each year, in the hope of fully killing it off.

lunch break

 Later in the afternoon, Adrian and Sue went into Paddock Cottage with Dan to give it a clean. 

cleaning Paddock Cottage

We had a great workday, even though we didn't quite finish the rhody clearance. Dan was delighted with the cleaning of Paddock Cottage and we were pleased to see, on our walk back to Knott car park via West Drive, that the new planting has already been started on the slopes of West Drive.