The Winter workday took place today with volunteers of all ages coming together to help dig the cow parsley out of the new glade. Glades form an important part of the micro eco-system that we are trying to achieve in the wood. Because the sunlight is able to reach the floor, different types of plants grown in glade areas compared to the rest of the dense wooded area. This encourages insects and butterflies and creates a perfect feeding area for birds. We have a glade already but this has been planted with trees and because of their access to sunlight and space they have flourished. So we have decided to create a new glade in the Western side of the wood. This has few trees and by clearing the cow parsley and nettles we hope to allow the sunlight in. We will be planting native bulbs and flowers in this new glade later in 2016 once we are sure that enough weeding has been done.
A volunteer brought along some snowdrop bulbs and we planted a row of these near to the path. Let’s see if they have more success than the bluebells we planted a while back.
Many thanks to the volunteers who helped with today’s work day.
