As you enter the car park tomorrow morning you may be in for a bit of a shock... the view has changed... well in fact you now have a view where there was not one before as the hedgelaying party returned today to complete the last 28 yards of the main strip.
It took all day but the end result is magnificent and will continue to provide an ever improving habitat for our reserve wildlife.
And so like last week we shall run through a little storyboard of how the day went...
The hedge awaiting rejuvenation
and the scraggly curved end that I unearthed from the huge clump of sloe suckers
And so the pleaching begins...
with each team of two taking on its own cant (a notional distance based on the division of larbour - today they were seven yards long - four pairs - 28 yards to work)
There were some tough bits today with lots of interwoven branches and trunks with kinks and bends which made the pleaching 'interesting' at times
getting there...
Meanwhile at the scraggy end, Martin tackles the final Sloe
... before sharpening enough hazel stakes to battle an army of Vampires
Hello cars on the other side! More stakes for the second wave of the undead...
Dad and Claire lifting in a bushy hawthorn - there was a lot more woody matter to play with this week and it was important to try and incorporate as much as we could into the hedge
With their cant finished first the lads have already banged in their stakes and are now binding with hazel
Last one...
Lining our stakes up at 18 inch intervals to feed into the hedge
Before weaving in the binders
And just to prove that I was actually helping and not just taking pictures! - cheers Mark!
While Martin feeds in some extra small hazel binders to bulk out the scraggy end with a wattle fence type feel, Dad clubs in the posts fully and tamps down the binders so that they tightly hold the hedge in place
Not so scraggy anymore... I intend to plant some donated Foxgloves in this newly exposed area now and suspect that many other native spring flowers will emerged next year.
Thank you to the team for such a sterling job... just the small one to do now!
Splendid job all its the dedication you all show that makes travelling to Rainham, from down here near Gatwick well worth the drive including the M25.