This Winter our work was all about the P’s – planting, pruning and ponds.
Planting
We are incredibly grateful to The Conservation Volunteers (Lockleaze Green Gym) who undertook the majority of this Winter’s tree planting. Most of the trees were planted near the M32. The trees will enhance existing habitats and also hopefully screen out some of the traffic noise.
Pruning
We pruned the pip fruits in our orchard under the guidance of the Forest of Avon Trust. One of our volunteers recently wrote a blog post about her experience of being taught to prune the trees. The stone fruits will be pruned in Spring.
More information about the orchard can be found on our Activities page.
Ponds
We are restoring two cobbled dew ponds. We made a lot of progress on this during the Winter.
Four months ago, the Pale Plantation pond was completely covered by chest-high brambles. We’ve now just about found the bottom of the pond and can confirm that the cobbles are indeed laid in a spiderweb pattern.
In the lower, semicircular dew pond, an interesting concentric pattern has been emerging.
What next?
In Spring and Summer we will be pruning the stone fruits in the orchard and re-starting our reptile and butterfly surveys.
If you would like to get involved with any of this work please sign up to volunteer. We do fun and interesting work, we provide free coffee and biscuits, and we would love it if you could join us. Volunteer sessions are every Thursday, and the first Saturday of the month.