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.

New information, new board, a school's visit and networking for positivity

Not a bad couple of weeks for us here on the LNR. Following on the tails of our last great event, bolstered timely by volunteers from Cardiff's Trail Scrubs group, we hear our first grant has been successful and soon we will be gaining a new notice board on the LNR. This was a Keep Wales Tidy Grant, which was match funded from CCW. The noticeboard will allow us to communicate events and relay information on the LNR to users to gain more support, understanding and maybe even help for this much used and loved community green space.

In a great move for the LNR, we found out that the Ranger, Jon, will be bringing a class of pupils over to the LNR from Henllys Church in Wales School in the next couple of weeks. The event we planned together will involve digging up some of the oak saplings which have grown up in one part of the LNR and replant them in some other sections. The parent tree has fantastic form and will hopefully help to improve the biodiversity of LNR. I've taken time off from work to lend a hand on this as it is during the school week and we're not normally able to do this crucial kind of activity to help improve the LNR while increasing awareness of what we do and try to achieve. So a big thanks to TCBC's Countryside Section for helping our group here.

 A wise man once said "it is into the sea the river flows". Well, another not so wise philosopher said just now "from a cluster of small tightly packed saplings which will probably die, we will make mighty oaks grow". The children coming down to help our small group will invigorate us, educate and enthuse them and you never know, these trees may even stem the floods that are flowing along the river down to the sea. Live in hope that you can but try.

11.03.12 Five events in one, great morning

Friends of Hennlys LNR were bolstered today by several new faces. Amy, Nikki and four from the newly formed Cardiff volunteer group Cardiff Trails Scrubs. It was the single biggest event we have hosted in one session so great news for us.

We started off from previous events on the reserve by performing a litterpick and the 11 volunteers quickly collected 10 bags of litter (event 1).

Rhett and Ollie from Cardiff Trail Scrubs picked up the large rakes and cleared out the drain which appears to be a major cause of localised LNR flooding and erosion.

The water was flowing beautifully afterwards (event 2).

The reserve is crossed by power lines and under these lines, trees will never reach maturity. Also, some of the trees were far too close together and were earmarked for thinning by Jon, the countryside ranger. Many of us were familiar with coppicing, but this time, it was tree felling and we went through safe tree felling and tool use. We split into two groups and felled a few trees (event 3).

Following on from this, we cut the trees into lengths to make the external and internal walls for the otter holt (event 4).

The final part of the day was to install some of the willow fascines which I made when performing some work at Cathays Community Centre. I donned the waders and slopped through smelly, bubbling sedimented mud and added the 3-bundles to the wall of willow. I added some new living stakes to stabilise these in place (event 5).

Slideshow of all the photos.

There are plans to finish off the holt, and details will follow.

On another note, some laminated sheets concerning a consulation for dogs on green spaces have been placed around entrances to the LNR. The consulation isn't proposing a ban for dogs on the LNR, but on playing fields and school grounds. However, it does mention enforcement of dog fouling on the LNR and other public access areas. There are many dog walkers who use the LNR and we plea that dog owners do clear up after their dogs. Dog poo bags can be taken home or placed in local authority bins.