I generally like to post positive comments on this blog but one thing regularly bothers me. Our volunteers give their time willingly and we would like to feel we have support from other park users. Yet our volunteers have to keep replacing the path edging logs in the Triangle.
Over the past few years Nature's Gym volunteers have helped the Friends of Mayow Park to maintain the Triangle beds. These are the fruit bed near the dawn redwood tree and the herb bed nearer to the cafe. We are always pleased to have help from Nature's Gym and their efforts make a lot of difference.
One task they do
each time is to bed the wood chip path edge logs between the dawn redwood and the fruit bed. As one person recently said, "It stops the path looking frayed." They do this because the logs are pulled up by others and not re-bedded.
As well as the path edging logs, the stepping logs in the fruit bed were originally placed so people could step through the fruit bed without trampling on plants and I have watched children having great fun jumping from one log to another. But some of these stepping logs have frequently been turned over to hunt for little creatures and have now deteriorated. If you look carefully, you will see some of these log remains.
The sitting logs by the mini meadow also deteriorated and crumbled over time made worse by efforts to lift them out of their posts.
So, path edge logs, stepping logs and sitting logs, three sets of logs within the Triangle, were placed for different purposes and all suffered. While I am sure people mean no harm, they clearly do not think that they are undoing work that volunteers have done. We have had to bed in logs ever more frequently, which is very disappointing for the volunteers who worked so hard. I think the time has come to raise awareness among park users and to ask them to leave these logs, not to move them.
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| edging log moved out of dug channel |
Another rather unfortunate consequence of the log-lifting is damage to the habitat of invertebrates such as stag beetles. I will explain:
At the end of April, Glendale staff helped the Friends by bringing more path edging logs and sitting logs. They worked hard to bed in the path edge logs. It really did look good! While digging, they found two older, rotting logs. One had at least a dozen stag beetle larvae. So these logs were carefully replaced and extra earth placed over them to make them less conspicuous.
Glendale also replaced the sitting logs by the mini meadow. Some of the old logs had rotted so were useless for sitting on. Their hard work was very much valued by us.
During the half term break, some people lifted and turned many of the new path edge logs, as well as the two rotting logs with the larvae. I found the two logs turned upwards, with only a slug and a woodlouse in one of them (see photo) where a few weeks earlier they had been occupied by the beetle larvae.
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| path edge log upturned |
These larvae were not ready to pupate when we discovered them at the end of April. I wonder whether eager young scientists discovered the creatures, did not know what they were and took them away.
It is now June, a time when the larvae pupate and turn into full-sized stag beetles, so I am disappointed at their disappearance.
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| one of the path edge logs lifted and habitat destroyed |
I would ask all park users and in particular the parents, children and teachers who use the park to consider that the logs have been put there by volunteer labour and that they serve as habitats that we should not disturb. There are other logs near the drinking fountain on the grass area of the Triangle which are not bedded in and can be moved at any time.
