By the Session Leader:
“RV Tithe
Barn, North Farm” acted as a trigger for some volunteers to experience a
little scepticism about today’s task.
Last time we
were here …
we were heading for a task
pulling thistles, having been given dire warnings about how they would take
over a field if unchecked. We did the
job, but took the warnings with a pinch of salt.
Today
we were to go to another field, where we had helped to plant hundreds of trees
in the wet land by the river – each sapling kitted out with a stake and
collar. The warning this time was that infant
trees were being taken over by 5-foot-tall grass and thistles, with the result
that a few saplings had died, and others were being slowly choked by grass and
weeds that had managed to grow inside the collars. Time for another pinch of salt?
When we got
to the field, we could hardly see the trees for grass, weeds,
and thistles:
The warden
was right after all. Why had we doubted
him?
So the master
demonstrated the technique of loosening the ties, and lifting off the collar:
Which we
soon put into practice …
though undoing
the ties was not always easy:
Some collars
were choked with grass, but the tree had survived:
Others only
revealed weeds, the tree having given up the ghost:
But a number
of trees had clearly won:
We had
started in the area where the slow growing oak and beech had been planted. Towards the
end we reached an area where faster-growing species had been planted, and these
had no trouble beating off the grass and weeds:
A satisfying
day, in spite of the slight drizzle. Sometimes
it is hard to know whether “precipitation probability 10%” means a 1 in 10 chance
of it raining properly – or just that there will be a tiny little bit of rain
on the breeze.
We had only
tackled one corner of a large field. But
never mind: we won’t run out of work.
No comments:
Post a Comment