Nature's Gym by the orchard Nov 2024

 21st November 2024

Nature's Gym - their final session in Mayow Park was in an area behind the orchard where a large tree had been felled and the trunk left on the ground for wildlife. The felling also opened the space to sunlight where there had previously been deep shade.

The plan was to 

• enhance  the stag beetle loggery built a few weeks ago by adding more upright logs half buried in the ground

• drill holes in the tops of the logs to encourage solitary bees to nest

• clear away brambles encroaching into the orchard

• plant hedgerow whips to infill gaps at the hedgerow by the hard standing.

Jane and Donna got to work using a spade and an adze to dig a long trench and gather the prepared logs from the loggery that had been built a few weeks earlier.  

Jane also sawed some logs to different sizes. 

These logs will stand upright in the trench, part buried in the ground and gradually rot down. 

The rotting logs will  hopefully attract stag beetles to lay eggs which will  develop into larvae, munching through the wood for up to seven years before emerging as majestic stag beetles.

Emily brought a drill and sat on the ground to drill a series of holes in what would be the tops of the logs. 

Mike, Charles and Sue took on the task of cutting back the brambles. (No photos), collecting all the arisings and piling them up to create wildlife habitats.

Charles and Alona planted some whips in the gaps between the trees in the existing hedgerow.

The finished loggery (see below) - thank you Donna and Jane. 

We had tea and biscuits when the work was done and all equipment packed away. A  very enjoyable session.

An artistic member of the Friends of Mayow Park is in the process of designing an interpretation sign for the loggery and we hope to have it in a couple of weeks.

Nature's Gym - helping wildlife: 2024

 31st October:

The north-eastern corner of Mayow Park is often ignored as a place to explore and to observe wild life. 

When new social housing was built recently outside the park but at the edge of this space Friends of Mayow Park and Lewisham's Nature's Gym saw the opportunity to enhance it for nature. A fallen oak lay alongside  the railings with Mayow Road - good  for wildlife and all kinds of invertebrates in particular. 

Too much bramble and cherry laurel had grown over the area in recent years. 

We needed to do far more to achieve our intention of turning this space into a nature reserve for wildlife to thrive and where people could visit.

Nature's Gym had already started to clear the scrub a few weeks ago.  But now we had two sessions to create a dead hedge, lay down a wood chip path and plant whips (young trees that are like small twigs)  to create a wildlife  hedgerow.

We had a pile of wood chippings from last year's Christmas trees - ideal for a path into the woods.

With two wheelbarrows to carry the wood chips into the nature area and willing volunteers it took no time to create a pathway.

  One wheel barrow emptied, ready to bring in another load of chippings.

While some volunteers cut back undergrowth, others made holes for wooden stakes to create a frame for the dead hedge.

We had a hand-held manual auger for digging holes, with its spiral drill cutting through the soil. Here we see the first hole being cut.

We needed more holes, to hold stakes in two parallel lines as a framework to hold the dead hedge in place.

Volunteers gathered the cut brambles, ivy, laurel and long branches. Then they laid them between the stakes to build the dead hedge.  

Using this method cuts the need to dispose of plant matter to a composting scheme. Organic matter slowly rots down in this space and will be topped up with more plant matter from time to time.

The dead hedge will also create a home for wildlife. It will provide shelter and food for all sorts of animals including invertebrates such as woodlice, caterpillars and beetles,  small mammals and some birds. It will be interesting to find out over time which creatures move in.

Here we can see the dead hedge between the stakes as plant material is being added.

7th November:

Today's aim was to plant many hedgerow whips along the periphery of the site. 

We needed to dig the ground to take the whips (no photo of the whips). 

Then the whips were planted  in a double row about 50 cm apart in each row. This close planting is so they will eventually form a thick hedge. This is a mixed hedge which includes rowan, hawthorn, blackthorn and even oak.

Each whip was watered and given some wood chip mulch to hold in the moisture.

Some of us will visit the hedgerow from time to time over the coming months and we hope it will thrive.