Today I got there on time!! A miracle, some might say.. lol

I thought it might be worth adding the back story to what we are doing. I ran the idea of removing scrub and replacing it with a wildflower meadow mix, past the Sustrans’ ecologist last year (Sustrans are the land owners). Sustrans thought it was a great idea to be planting wildflower seeds and worked out a management plan for the work that we are now doing. The seed mix has UK provenance and is from a reputable seller called Habitat Aid. So if anyone is wondering why the area looks like a bomb site, I assure you that it is work in progress and in accordance with the management plan given to us by Sustrans.

Mick, Marcus and myself turned up for another gruelling morning.

This bare ground represents three man-hours of work. It is really slow and hard work.

If we do not get the bramble roots out it will simply be brambles again next year.

The last bit to do is around the bench and then the section with the trees that we planted last autumn, and rediscovered when we rolled back the scrub. And this shows how vigorous and smothering the scrub is, if it is left unchecked.

So basically, that gives a potted summary of what we are doing, why we are doing it and the reasoning behind it.

A nice bracket fungus to finish.

Great work today. I reckon we have two more sessions of pulling the roots up. After that it will be much softer work because we don’t want to be disturbing our seed mix.

If anyone wants to come along and help, you are most welcome. Many hands and all that!

Paul