It was great to hold a work party again after the latest lockdown, and we were fortunate that the areas we worked in were largely sheltered from the strong south-westerly. Richard ran one group checking the whips on the eastern boundary, I ran a second group maintaining path edging in the north-east corner, and Bill did a few additional jobs. We were very pleased to welcome new Duke of Edinburgh candidate Rosa and her mum Laurette.
The whip tending team of 4 (Richard, Sally, Lauretta and Rosa) split into 2 groups of 2. One team worked from the extreme NE of the eastern boundary, moving south to where the boundary turns sharply to the SW (all Zone 2); the second team worked from the extreme SE of the eastern boundary, moving north to approximately the middle of the curve where the boundary turns gently from a NE orientation to a NW orientation (all Zone 4). Slightly less than half of the eastern boundary whips remain to be inspected; this could be completed by a team of 2 or 3 volunteers at the next opportunity. The whips, guards and canes were inspected for general health, clearing any seriously encroaching vegetation and replacing any missing/damaged canes and guards. There were around 10 whips in the southern sector with no guards (an experiment to see how they fared, so we did not interfere). Generally, the majority of the whips appeared in good health; there were a number with no obvious live buds, but if these resisted a gentle upwards pull, they were left in place. A few failed this test (around 6-10, at a guess), and were pulled out of the ground with no root. By contrast, Bill found that only about 3 whips (Hawthorn) planted along the northern boundary a couple of years ago had survived.
Luke, Mike, Rod and Tim helped me with the path edging. I had procured some surplus-to-requirements stake material from Rushcliffe Country Park, from which I had made about 70 stakes for path edging, and about 30 more were made on the day from suitable material lying around. We used the stakes to fasten down existing path edging in the north-east corner (Zone 2), and also filled some gaps in the path edging with suitable fallen branches. Although there is more to do along this stretch, we managed to restore over half of it to good condition. Mike perfected the art of swinging the sledge hammer in time with a Skylark’s song.
Bill fixed the ‘Welcome to our Home’ sign at the Wheatcroft gate, staked a tree in the Zone 5 triangle, replaced the stakes at the western path steps, collected some broken glass and litter from the Zone 4 party site and collected a bag of rubbish from Zone 1. With Luke and Mike’s help he removed the unwanted Geotex roll to the Peveril gate, and with great difficulty, and to the amusement of onlookers, Rod and Luke got it through the gate and down the hill for collection (along with various bits of litter collected by the teams).
by John Elwell (work party coordinator)
