The Holly and the Ivy a little out of season....?? Styal 27 March 2011

Five volunteers turned me up in the main car park at Styal Country Park / Quarry Bank Mill, and spent the day working in and around a small quarry, situated in the slope between the car park and the mill. We have done some work here before clearing assorted debris, small shrubs and Rhodi. Today there were various tasks, clearing ivy from the stump and the bottom 6 feet of tree to its left in the first picture. Removing selected small holly trees, clearing some of the felled timber (and converting the smaller bits into usable firewood for a domestic grate), and installing a three wire fence along the top of the face.


The fencing was made more "interesting" as the plan was to retain as much of the holly undergrowth around it as possible. The holly screens the top of the quarry and naturally keeps people out of harms way, but did complicate the task a little. A safety barrier was placed along the highest section of edge before we started work, along with high vis tape to help us keep track of where we were working.

Manoeuvring a large coil of wire through the bushes while keeping track of exactly where the edge was took a while but was managed safely. The risks were actually well controlled as the fence was a couple of feet back fro the edge and this quarry apears to be quite stable - I guess due to the shelter from the trees preventing frost damage. The other trick we found was to tie spare jumpers round some of the holly bushes to keep them out of the way!

The third photograph is view along the fence, looking from the left hand edge of the 2nd photo towards the right hand edge of the first. At this point the quarry face is merging into a steep holly covered bank.

Shugborough 20 March 2011

Five volunteers met up at Styal and car shared down to Shugborough - where we met up with one of the gardeners.

A new metal edge had been installed along the edges of some of the paths in the autumn, and the gardeners were hoping for some help tidying up the results. This involves...

Taking off a strip of turf,
Leveling off topping up and packing down the soil
Replacing the turf along the edge - creating a gap further back
Filling the gap with more fresh soil
The gap can then be reseeded with an appropriate grass mix.

This process has two advantages over simply filling the gap behind the new edge and seeding it - The turf is tougher than loose soil so it forms a more stable edge, and it easier to avoid planting fresh grass seed on the path! We split into two groups - on taking up and replacing the turf, the second filling the gap with fresh soil. Unfortunately the soil supply was rather stony - and anything bigger than roughly 1/2" had to be fished out as we went along.

Still - the gardeners should be pleased that they haven't had to do it all themselves. The photographs show the intermediate stage, and the end of the day ready for the seed, the second photo was taken from further back and shows a longer length of path.

or in Daniels words...
Five of us went down the M6 today to work in the garden at Shugborough. We spent the day working with gardener Jim edging a footpath. The job involved moving established turf up against the metal path edge and then filling in the gap left behind with topsoil ready for seeding in a few weeks. The topsoil was very stony and we had to pick out the stones and larger pebbles. The photo attached shows the general result. We did approximately 150 metres and Jim reckoned there was a mile in all to do – plenty to keep him busy all summer!

Spring had arrived in the garden and the lawns by the riverbank where we had lunch were covered in clusters of daffodils. After lunch the gardens were full of people, some of whom ventured over the river to the new arboretum. The sculpture trail - new in 2010 I think – caught our imagination. The highlight was this mosaic newt – as big as a Komodo dragon - which all the passersby were commenting on!

Joe Hawkins, head gardener, completed his Thomas Wright-inspired fundraising walk from Durham to Shugborough last autumn and has written all about it in his blog:

www.thelandscapedisciple.blogspot.com

Rhodadendron - Hayfield (Park moor) 13 March 2011

Eight volunteers turned out, and spend the day with the local staff (wardens - shortly to be renamed and reuniformed as "rangers" - apparently) cutting and burning Rhodadendron.

If you haven't already heard R. Ponticum is a menace reducing biodiversity in the Uk see countryside info for one explanation of the reasons - or hunt down other entries in this blog.

As the day started out wet Shane selected a comparatively level patch to work on for this session. As we avoided working in the smoke, we cut an area that extended some distance behind the camera position used for the before and after photographs posted here. The rain more or less stopped as we started work and the day ended in pleasant sunshine.

Hedge laying at Alderly Edge

Eleven volunteers turned out to Alderley Edge and spent the day laying a hedge along side the road. We had done some of this hedge two weeks before, and it was started by another group before that.

The weather started cold but with a blue sky and pleasant sunshine we warmed up.

Unfortunately it took us a while to get going, and some of the hedge was easier to get going on than other bit - so we didn't get quite as much done as we wouls have like.

So we will probably have to go back next year. One section is shown in the photo.

Pie night 3 March 2011

Sarah and I had the company of 6 men tonight! Now that's a turn up for the books as it's usually the other way round. The pies were as good as usual (steak and ale was the favourite by a small margin), but some of us had to eat our meal in two courses as our descent en masse was too much for the chip supply.

Conversation, as usual, soon veered from the usual catching up to more random topics such as whether Tim could stand on one leg with the other raised up towards his head, the life of lemurs and, if the 8 of us were stranded on a deserted island (which bizarrely was somewhere off the coast of Pembrokeshire yet had no stones!), who would we eat first to survive and how would we light a fire?

Yep, we had an entertaining evening!