Wed 24th April 2013. Pan Mill Meadows, Newport.

This week saw the group at Pan Mill Meadows, with our usual excellent

turnout of volunteers.  Our list of tasks was fairly long, but we managed to

complete them all by the end of the session.  Our main task was to spread

three trailer loads of woodchip round the pathway, as several areas get

very boggy when it rains.  The guys from St Georges did a litter pick, and a

great job they did too filling quite a few black bags to stack in the

trailer.  Other tasks were to repair the chicken wire on the bridge over the

stream, and remove some post and wire fencing which had falledn down and was

looking very untidy - a further section of fencing was removed from the

stream under the bridge.  We also cut back a section of willow which was

overhanging the cycle path, and removed a lot of sycamore from another area

of the site.  We then cut some willow steams and transplanted these to the

area where we removed the sycamore, in the hope they may regenerate.  Our

final task was to clear an area to improve the visibility from the pathway,

and then use the cut pieces to make a low barrier to prevent it being used

as a through route.  The local PCSO officer cycled through and said he had

been there this morning at 8.30 and now he didn't recognise the place as we

had done such a good job, a compliment indeed!

Many thanks to Carrie for the blog information and photographs this week.

There are a couple of items in the County Press this week that might be of interest, see pages 28 and 31 for further details.......

Wed 17th April 2013 - Ventnor Botanical Gardens.

Our second visit in two weeks saw us again at Ventnor Botanic Gardens.  It was certainly considerably warmer than our last visit, and we had over 30 people at the session.  We were working at the back of the gardens in a slightly different area to last week.  Our tasks were to remove bramble and ivy from a small area - taking care there were no nesting birds of course. The second and much larger task involved cutting back brambles, dead trees and dogwood, and stacking all the off-cuts into large piles.  This would open up a view across the garden and they are hoping the dogwood will regenerate some new growth, so you can see the lovely rich red colour of the branches.

Many thanks to Carrie for the blog this week.

Wed 10th April 2013 - Fort Victoria, Yarmouth.

Our venue this week was at Fort Victoria, helping Nick the Ranger.  Once we spotted the wheelbarrows in the trailer, we knew there would be a large pile of limestone chippings somewhere, and we weren't wrong.  However, once several of us set to with shovels and wheelbarrows, the new path soon looked very smart, as you can see from the picture.  Other jobs were to put some protective plastic collars round some of the native trees we planted back in March, and then some path work to clear weeds and any trip hazards.



Carrie's Nature Lesson.

This week’s find by Durinda is a Horsetail (Equisetum Arvense).  This is a perennial plant found in or near watery areas such as marshes, streams, or rivers, and is a derivative of larger plants that grew 270 million years ago during the carboniferous period. The picture shows the first stage occurring in early spring with a fertile hollow stem resembling asparagus.  After these stems have withered and died, the second stage occurs during the summer months when thin green barren stems branch out from the plant.  It is during this stage that horsetail is gathered for medicinal use.  It has no leaves or flowers and was named for its bristly appearance, with the genus name Equisetum deriving from the Latin words equus, meaning horse, and seta, meaning bristle. Other names for horsetail include shave-grass, bottle-brush, and paddock-pipes.

The medicinal use of horsetail dates back to ancient Roman and Greek times. The Greeks used it as a wound healer, a diuretic, and an agent to stop bleeding. Nicholas Culpeper, a popular seventeenth-century herbalist, wrote of horsetail's beneficial properties in stopping bleeding and treating ulcers, kidney stones, wounds, and skin inflammation. Its reedy exterior and silica content have made it a popular metal polisher and natural abrasive cleanser, and one of its nicknames is pewterwort, so named because it was used to scour pewter. English dairy maids used it to scour their milk pails, while early Americans used it to scrub their metal pots and pans.

Thanks to Carrie for the blog this week...!

Wed 3rd April 2013 - Botanic Gardens, Ventnor.

View before.

View after...!

A return visit to a venue we have not visited since August 2011 - Ventnor Botanic Gardens, which is now run as a Community Interest Company. Considering the recent difficult weather the gardens do look really good. Our major task for today was to clear one of the banks at the rear of the garden of a very thick mat of ivy and a large area of brambles.  We also made some gaps between different species of bamboo, so they could thrive more easily, and all the green stuff we removed was soon carted away on the back of a tractor to their compost heap.

Many thanks to Carrie for the blog this week.