Ivy, love it or hate it… We have too much and it is stopping other things growing. It is also growing up tree trunks and into the canopy, which blocks out sunlight and can weaken the branches.

Before and after shows how little we are removing. Plenty left for insects, birds and foraging animals.

We continued with thinning out the small saplings to give the bigger trees space to grow and mature.

It just feels so much more open and welcoming. The more sunlight that we let in, the more biodiverse and interesting the understory will be.

This is a bit that we haven’t snipped back.

I know what I prefer to look at.

There is still plenty of really wild scrub all the way to the edge of the railway line, and on the other side of the path, as well.

Paul