Bracken control at Hayfield on Sunday 30th June

This week a small group of four worked with ranger Iain on Nab Brow above Kinder Reservoir, knocking back bracken around recently planted saplings.

Hunting for small trees amongst the bracken

We parked at the reservoir, then had a 20 mins. walk, quite steep uphill in places, but the weather was cooler than the previous day and overcast, so quite comfortable for walking. It’s a beautiful area, we could see Kinder Downfall from the worksite and the Pennine Way passes not too far away so it's popular for walking; this gave us plenty of opportunity to talk to people as they went by.

The National Trust is planting trees - oak, rowan, birch, holly, elder - as part of long term conservation work to connect up existing woodland, increase biodiversity and slow down peat erosion from rain water runoff.

Woodland planted about 20years ago

The tools of the day were sickles and weed whackers which we used to cut back bracken from around the saplings so they have a better chance of surviving. They were planted about two years ago in a random pattern - no straight lines allowed! - so they were quite difficult to find; we were looking for little green trees among thousands of green bracken as those taller than the bracken didn’t need the extra ‘help’.

It was a very tiring day, on account of the steep terrain more than the work, but satisfying. We may not go to the area again, but the woodland progression we saw on Sunday gave us a good idea of the result in 20-30 years time.

Lunch break

Text and photos provided by Jean

Fence removal and thistle thrashing at Lyme on Sunday 23rd June 2019

Today’s ‘main’ task was supposed to be removing some deer fencing from a plantation near the main drive, but when fourteen of us turned up, we split into two groups with one doing the fencing while another did some thistle thrashing.

The fencing involved removing the old mesh fence and posts, which were no longer needed as the trees on the plantation have now grown large enough to not be at risk of being eaten by the deer. New wooden tree guards were then put in around some of the trees.

The thistle thrashers spread out along the western side of the main drive armed with slashers to cut down any thistles before they could set seed. It was hot and humid work.

Mild excitement was provided by a tree that gave an almighty crack (but didn’t fall) on the other side of the wall to where we were working, the discovery of a skull (possibly a deer) and the discovery of lots of wild orchids among other wildflowers in the long grasses.

 

After lunch everyone moved onto thrashing, and we managed to clear a wide area either side of the drive between the information hut and the main car park.

Luckily the threatened thunderstorm didn’t materialise and we went home dry, as well as happy and tired.

Balsam Bashing at Hardcastle Crags on Sunday 16th June

Sunday 16th June started off nice and sunny after we had a lot of rain on the Saturday.

As there were only 6 of us who said they were coming, Ally contacted them all to agree to car share, so Jenny and Andy made their own way there, Vincent picked up Tricia, and I picked up Laura, so we were not going out of our way to meet at Styal for a car-share.

Laura asked if we were going to Hardcastle Crags, I confused her by saying we were going to Hebden Bridge, but we still ended up at Gibson Mill for our lunch on the picnic table there.

We met Natalie at the ranger base, where she agreed that it had been so wet that the decision was made to harvest the Himalayan Balsam through the woods, and then have lunch at Gibson Mill.

We started off fine until we came to quite a wet patch and Andy disturbed a wasp who took exception to him.  So, we moved on until Victor disturbed another wasp that took a bit out of him. As we went down the paths, we met up with the general public who asked us what we were doing, and it gave us an opportunity to educate the public on what the Victorians brought over to the country.

We were also able to tell them that Hardcastle Crags would be on Countryfile on the BBC that night and Natalie would be on, describing the Ants and their hills and other creatures which were in the woods.

We then realised that the Ranger mile was a different distant to us all, and we were so glad to reach the Mill.

After lunch Natalie took us on a guided tour of the Mill.

We then slowly made our way back along the paths to another site of Balsam which we pulled up before we made our way home.

Group photo

Text from Neil. Photo from Nat.

Styal, in the orchard, on Sunday 9th June 2019

Eight of us, including Georgi who joined us for the first time, met with Craig and Dani, two of the Styal Rangers, in the main car park at 9.30am.
From there, Dani and Craig took their vehicles to the orchard to where we would be working, while the rest of us opted to walk there to take in the lovely sunny morning and have a chat.
After arriving at the orchard, Craig explained that we'd be doing a variety of tasks today: the grass in the orchard needed strimming, a new tree guard needed erecting and some of the existing tree guards needed re-positioning so they sat parallel to the road along with the rest of the tree guards, and a number of willow trees that were in the garden of one of the newly tenanted properties needed removing so the oak trees had more space and let more light in.
In true MNTV style, after a safety and tools talk, we got to work on the various tasks with enthusiasm to take advantage of the weather while it was being kind to us.

Girl Power! - although it was Tim and Dani who actually put up the tree guard:-)

We had a quick morning break around 11.15am, then were back to it.

Andy strimming the grass

Sadly the rain fell as predicted around lunchtime, so we had a wet lunchtime, but it dried up as we continued afterwards.

Georgi taking the strain while the willow was being felled

However that wasn't the last of the rain and it came down again during the afternoon!
There were more willow than we realised and, once felled, the trees took up more space on the ground than we expected so Craig and Dani left to collect the chipper and,

The chipper being loaded

as an additional task, we 'fed' the chipper and got rid of the majority of the felled willow trees.
A good day's work for us all, and very satisfying, particularly for those learning or trying new tasks for the first time:-)

Group photo

Photo's from Adrian and Sue 

Stakeout: preparing the Dahlia Walk on Sunday 2nd June 2019

The gardens at Biddulph Grange are nationally famous, and one of the main attractions in the height of summer is the Dahlia Walk.

At its peak, hundreds of dahlias line the walk, and the team of gardeners are currently busy bringing on the plants in the greenhouses, ready for planting out. Our job was to put in stakes for every one of those plants!

Growing dahlias in the greenhouse

We worked to a careful plan of how many stakes were to be put in each bed, and how far apart they had to be. It took a bit of working out initially, but once we'd figured it out we soon hit our stride.

Neil and Lisa measure the required gaps

Each bed had three rows of stakes, with the height of the stakes increasing from front to back so that the smaller plants can go into the front and the taller plants at the back. At lunchtime we enjoyed the luxury of our own mess room (handy when it started to rain) and a fine array of biscuits and treats laid on for us by Leslie, the gardener.

The Dahlia Walk almost fully staked

By mid afternoon we'd finished the stakes, and dug holes next to the stakes in some of the beds ready for the plants to go into. We then had half an hour looking round the gardens before home time.

Group photo at the end