Explorers environment activity – Sat 24th Oct 2009

On Saturday 24th October I went to the Worcestershire Wildlife Trust's Lower Smite Farm with the Worcester North Explorers to volunteer with fence removing, hedge planting and site clearing. We met with Caroline Corsie the farm manager who explained what we were going to do.

We first learnt about some of the wildlife we might find and what to do with them. We had to look out for frogs, slow worm and great crested newts. We had to pick up and move the frogs and slow worms to a safe place but we had to shout out if we saw a newt because they are a protected species and you need a licence to touch them. I saw a few frogs and worms but no newts.

We split into 3 groups, one group to remove the old fencing that we were going to replace with a hedge, the second group to prepare the ground and plant the hedge, and the last group to clear up all of the piles of removed bushes and plants, build a bonfire and burn it off.

I helped mostly with the hedge as it was the biggest job to do and needed most of us.

The first thing to do was to clear the ground where we wanted to roll out the weed mat over, all of the thick clumps of grass and weeds had to be pulled up so the mat lay flat on the soil, if we did not do this properly the new hedge plants would die.

The mat was then rolled out and pegged down about half a metre from the new wire fence, this fence would be taken down when the hedge had grown but was there to protect the new plants from the cows until it was thick enough to keep them out.

The next job was to make holes in the mat about half a metre apart on the fence side and then another row at the back opposite the gaps. We laid about 100 metres of mat and planted about 100 new hedge plants. The plants were mixed sorts, about 80% were hawthorn with blackthorn but there were also some more expensive ones like hazel, holly, oak, maple, dogwood and a few honeysuckles.

The plants were put into the holes and soil added that we had dug up from the field next to us, we had to make sure that no air could get to the roots or the plants would die. For the more expensive plants we put a cane next to them and wrapped a plant protector around it to stop the plant being bashed by the wind or eaten by the animals.

After our break we swapped the groups around and I went to help with the clearing up and bonfire. The garden at the back of the buildings was completely full of old bushes and plants and needed clearing. It took ages to get the bonfire going as it had all been rained on for ages and was soaking wet. Eventually it got going and we threw all of the stuff on a bit at a time using long handled forks. This was a lot easier work than the hedge planting!

We will be going back to help again in January to start planting trees to extend the woodland corridor across the site.

www.worcestershirewildlifetrust.blogspot.com

www.flickr.com/photos/worcestershirewildlifetrust

Tom G,

Scout, 5th Worcester