Dunham Massey 24 Sept 2011

Thanks to Mick for the text and Nathan for the photo
The MNTV group were back at Dunham Massey, continuing the National Trust war of attrition against Rhododendron ponticum. At Dunham, this is only found outside the park in the coverts between the park and grazing for Home Farm. With a large group - seventeen volunteers - quite a lot of rhody was bashed in Headsman's covert and fed onto two fires. As a potential vector for Phytophthorum ramorum (responsible for Sudden Oak Death), the rhododendron is better removed than left. In addition, removing it will allow more wild flowers to return to the covert.

Thurstaston Common 18 Sept 2011

Four volunteers met up at Quarry Bank mill, and car shared to Thurstaston, where we met up with the warden and our colegues from Chester.

The day didn't go entirely according to plan, with some confusion as to which rugby club we were meeting at.

There were other issues which stopped the planned Rhodi bash, leaving us tackling the saplings that were invading open heathland.

We did some usefull work, and after a grey start the sun shone.

Shugborough 3 Sept 2011

Seven volunteers turned out, and shared cars for a trip down the M6 to Shugborough.
We continued the task that we had started last month (21 Aug 2011). When we arrived we found some work had been done in our absence.Once again there a number of waders available, though the last pair belonging to Shugborough (as opposed to "ours") had been put away full of water! - so I didn't bother with them (I wasn't in the water). We had some people in the water pulling the reads and throwing them onto the bank, and some cleaning up the sandstone wall that holds up the "bank" using spades. - (see second photo)
This time I avoided getting completely coated in mud. In fact I found that with the aid of a pitch fork I could transfer the pulled material from where it was thrown on the bank to the pile without getting it on me at all!
This time we were asked to minimise the number of piles of pulled material - so we built two as it was getting to be quite a long walk to the first one by lunch time. The pile in the third photo represents half of the material we removed this time. With the group in the background tucking in to some well earned cake.The final photo is from the same view point as the first, and shows what we have done as well as the muddy marks on the grass which we are told will wash off with the first rain.

Hare Hill 4 Sept 2011

Six of our volunteers met up with two locals, and another group - the Sale and Altrincham conservation volunteers and spent the day in the parkland surrounding Hare Hill Garden.

We were returning to a land drain that we had previously visited I think in May 2009 - though as this drain was is particularly deep and very well blocked it more or less defeated us on that occasion. This time a local farmer had been recruited to remove the top 4 feet or so of soil. This had created a series of trenches along the line of the drain. So in theory we only had to dig down one to two feet - naturally we discovered the drain was not straight and it dissappeared out of the side of the trench so we did have to dig one pit to the full depth by hand.

In the first photgraph - you can see water flowing along the base of the trench this is above the level of the drain. It then dispears into a section of drain that wasn't completely blocked by mud. Looking the otherway in the second photo a little later (the stones flat in the mud are where the gentleman was standing in the first photo) - the drain has been uncovered, opened, and cleaned out. The trench has also been made wider to get at more of the drain. Standing in the trench is a T bar that allows you to find the drain without digging it up - so long as it isn't too deep, and behind the bucket is a hand dug pit that allowed us to get at the next blockage a little further downstream.

By the end of the day water was flowing along the entire section (these photos only show about 1/5 of the length uncovered). Though there was still a partial blockage under the piles of grass covered soil in the background of the second photo.

Shugborough 21 August 2011

Nine of us travelled down the M6 today to Shugborough, the seat of the Earls of Lichfield.

We spent the day working with Derek digging up reeds (glyceria and water burdock) from the riverbank nearest to the mansion house.

After we’d pulled the reeds we cleaned up the sandstone embankment by removing vegetation that had taken hold since the last clearance three years ago.

The group’s new chest waders kept those working in the river dry, but it was messy work and after we’d finished we had a dip in the fountain to clean ourselves up.

From the worksite we had good views of the arboretum and Derek pointed out the new sculptures that had been installed since our visit in March, e.g. Pocahontas, Dream Catcher and a baby elephant.

We ate Daniel’s chocolate cake for elevenses and had a Victoria sandwich courtesy of the tearoom for lunchtime pudding!

There were lots of passersby in the afternoon including a couple who volunteer at Styal/Hare Hill and who had had supper on Saturday night with one of our members!

Derek appeared on the BBC’s Gardener’s World last Friday with Carol Klein! If you didn’t see the episode it will be on the iPlayer for the next few days.

Hare Hill gardens 14 Aug 2011

Seven volunteers turned out to Hare Hill gardens near Alderley Edge for a task originally billed as clearing a pond. There was a small change of plan as it was thought that there might be newts breeding in the pond, so the task became "checking the land drains that feed the ponds". Though in the event we only managed to start on one.

We started with the small pond between the walled garden and the toilet, over the course of the day we located the first 60 odd feet of one of the land drains that feeds it. We dug down to the drain in about three places and found that it was in good condition - but difficult to access as it was under about 4 feet of garden soil which also contained a lot of bricks. This was real work - we've got use to similar land drains in the park that are only about 18 inches down and far easier to find!

We also proved by then end of the day that the bore of the drain was open for a distance of about 60 feet - initially there were a number of regions where mats of root were blocking it - but these were fished out on the end the drain rods with the aid of a "pig tail". We stopped about 3pm to clear up the tools and me - the other volunteers had managed to remain comparatively clean! As I was in the pond with the drain rods, and wellies I didn't take any photos.....

A small group had also visited some of the other ponds on site to investigate where the water feeds into and out of them, but they didn't find much - being wise enough to leave a wasps nest well alone......

A large tree will soon have to be felled near the drain we were investigating - but as they now know where the drain is - they should be able to carry out the work without damaging the drain.

Dunham Massey 7 August 2011

A Group of eleven of us worked in the old car park at Dunham Massey, pulling up Balsam (Impatiens glandulifera). This invasive weed can grow to 10 foot tall! It's purply-pink helmet-shaped flowers may look pretty whilst in flower but once they turn to seed-pods these, when ripe, will open explosively dispersing up to 800 seeds a plant up to a distance of 7 metres away!! As if this wasn't enough, it's shallow root system grows in the top layer of soil or decaying leaf matter and, once the plant dies in the winter, there is nothing binding the soil so it is often washed away over the winter, causing major soil-erosion issues. This is particularly a problem when it grows on river banks. Fortunatley, as there was a large group of us today, we managed to clear a large area and, despite a bit of rain on occasion, we had a great day out 'balsam-bashing'!