30.04.12 Blocked drains, heavy rains & willow gains

After all this rain we have been enjoying, I went down to the LNR today, fully expecting the drain at the far end of the LNR to be blocked and full of twigs. Well, it was, so armed with a mud rake, I unblocked it and moved as much of the wood away from the drain area.

Later, I had a close inspection of the natural fascines made by the Friends Group as well as with HSBC, and they look like they are doing a brilliant job, so hopefully we are safeguarding some of the oldest, if not largest of the trees on the local nature reserve.

Some of the stakes that we cut from living willow are also showing signs of fresh green leaves. Brilliant news.

There are also signs of many thousands of Himalayan balsam coming up all over the place, so we know what is coming up in the next few months.

Another drain was completely blocked and this will form the groups next event, date TBA.

The new noticeboard for events etc will be ordered this week, so hopefully, this will arrive in the non too distant future.

For more information contact us at friendsofhenllyslnr@googlemail.com

Henllys Church in Wales event and thundery weather

By all accounts from Jon the Ranger, I was told the class from Henllys Church in Wales relocated 11 oak trees to other sites across the LNR. The kids had great fun, learned all about this valuable resource with the sad loss of 2 spades (tools aren't what they used to be). Sadly, as I was at work, no photos were taken, so you'll have to use your imagination of what happened, my artists impression is much like my pictionary skills, useless.

The sun and rain we have been not been enjoying over the last few days will be doing wonders for our friend Himalayan balsam and it will not be long until we start coming out and pulling it up. Please remember, if you are a dog walker or user of the LNR, make sure you pull it fully up, bend it in half, then wring it, before placing it on a big pile. Over the years on the LNR, we have found that fewer bigger piles are better than many smaller piles. That is because some of the plants re-root in the pile from nodes, these flower and can cast seeds. You may well see one of us jumping up and down on piles of balsam to try and stop this from occuring. If you want to come along with us, please contact us on friendsofhenllyslnr@gmail.com.

Today, I took a day of work to help TCBC Ranger, Jon Howells with volunteer John adkins to prepare a site for oak respacing on Henllys LNR.

Tomorrow, children from Henllys Church in Wales Primary School will be coming down with Jon to  respace some closely packed oak saplings.

There is a wonderful oak tree which has been subjected to terrible arson from vandals on the LNR. Fortunately, some of the tree is still alive and it has been producing great saplings over the last 3 years. Most of these, however, are tightly packed and have been subjected to the  terrors of being pulled all over the place by brambles so lack great shape.

The idea is to dig up and respace some of these saplings to increase the effectiveness of this crop. The job for today was to cut out the brambles from around these saplings. Jon was using a brushcutter, while John and I used long-handled hooks.

While performing this, as per usual, we uncovered a large amount of historic and fresh litter which filled one large bag. I also found a perfectly functional garden fork which will be donated to a local school group.

All in all, a great morning and best of luck for tomorrow. This is the first chance to bring a school group on the LNR, so thanks to Jon for organising it. Hopefully it will be able to help friends of Henllys LNR no end of good.