Just the three of us today and we spent time clearing scrub from the area south of the bridge, that crosses the greenway. Rather than just wildly hacking back, we tried to pull the brambles up, roots and all. This will help to slow their growth over the summer.
We had this area totally cleared a couple of years ago and saw some lovely wild flowers coming up. Unfortunately, the scrub has been allowed to grow back, but being relatively new, it clears quite quickly.
We have one more month of clearing before the bird nesting season starts. I guess the best plan is to continue clearing this area until the end of March, then walk the whole length of the greenway to cut back anything encroaching onto the path, do a litter pick and then identify a couple more areas that we can completely clear in the autumn. Realistically, I think we can keep on top of three to four large clearings. We have the picnic clearing and the bird-box clearing already, There is an area that we started working on a few years ago, with a very steep southerly facing bank, just past the underpass on the section that heads towards the Bear pub and lastly, the grassy area by the Home Rule for Crick bridge that we want to try and establish the growth of Kidney Vetch, to encourage a colony of Small Blue butterflies.
Next workday is Monday 2nd March at 9am at the same place, working southbound. CANCELLED DUE TO BAD WEATHER!
Paul
Cawston Greenway 