Fencing and vegetation clearance at Styal on Sunday 8th January 2023

Happy new year everyone!

Even before the ranger had arrived Neil had started work. He was replacing the blades on the Fiskar loppers.

Neil persuaded the manufacturer to help our volunteering efforts and send us some new blades for our favourite loppers.  Now we don’t have to fight over the good ones.

Ceara arrived with some spades and fence posts.  Contractors had been in during the week and cut back vegetation in front of one of the fences by the carpark.  Unfortunately the ivy had been holding up some of the posts so our job was to replace the broken ones.  We didn’t have far to walk, as the fence was just by where we had parked.  We started by clearing the vegetation on the other side of the fence.

Vegetation before ...

... and after

Then it started to rain so we decided it was time for drinks and cake.

We tested out the shelter by the education centre and we stayed nice and dry.  The rain soon stopped so we went back to work replacing fence posts.  We replaced seven posts and four rails.

Fencing before ...

... and after

We finished the fencing work just before 1pm so headed back to the shelter for lunch.  In the afternoon Ceara gave us a quick tour of the carpark verge, pointing out what trees to keep and what to take out (hopefully we got it right).  The idea is to give more light to the plants below so more flowers will grow.  Neil also tackled the drainage around the carpark scraping out the autumn leaves.  It had rained a lot recently and the water wasn’t flowing away properly.

Victor decided to thoroughly test the new loppers on the holly tree that was growing round a lamp post.

Holly before ...

... and after

The rest of us tackled the trees round the verge.  No cars were harmed in the process.  The brash was tucked behind the bank out of sight leaving a wildlife habitat.

Verge before ...

... and after

At the end of the day we posed with our new tools, tired but satisfied we had made a difference.

Jenny