Himalayan Balsam bash at Styal Country Park - Sunday 4th July 2021

Well what a wet day it was!.....despite this seven hardy NT'ers turned out to bash some balsam on Sunday 4th July 2021.

We were working at the periphery of the estate near the Manchester Airport runway, despite the reduced number of flights due to Covid we were bashing along to the background noise of aircraft engines warming up and flights arriving and departing over the hill.

We started pulling balsam at the side of a footpath on the Estate behind the Airport Inn.

No tools are needed for balsam pulling, you just need to ensure you tug the plant at the root to remove it fully, the balsam then needs snapping above the root and the first notch on the stalk.  It is quite a satisfying job but a little repetetive.

Balsam root

Snapped balsam

When we arrived it was lovely and sunny and we thought we were going to have a glorious day, how wrong we were, within 10 minutes of pulling balsam the rain came down and drenched us all.  So tea break and lunch breaks were spent in our cars!

Tea break in our cars

After tea break we had finished the footpath so moved into a wooded area to pull some more balsam and shelter from the downpour then it was back to our cars for lunch.

Luckily just after lunch the sun came out and we ventured further along the path into the Estate and found some patches of balsam near the River Bollin, some of the balsam plants were enormous as modelled below....

We soon exhausted that patch and headed back to the meadow area to find some more balsam and there was plenty to go at but it was on a slope covered in brambles so quite a tricky area to work in.

A very satisfying day, the problem with balsam is that it will just keep growing back so we will always have plenty to pull!  

Unfortunately we couldn't get a socially distanced group photo to show you how wet we were!