Botany for Beginners

Our outdoor classroom today: the churchyard of St Leonard’s. 

That’s the one with the tower, which can just be spotted from the River Thames, downstream of Wallingford Rowing Club; and a site well known to us.  Very handsome it looked too in the morning sun:

A botanist could have an interesting study of the types of plants and their rate of growth amongst the graves in this churchyard.  In the open sunny area the grasses had predominated, growing to the height of the gravestones.  Together with brambles, nettles and various weeds they obscured the interesting engravings on the stones as well as preventing visitors from walking amongst them:

On the other hand, under the shade of the trees there was very little grass.  On the sloping part, cow parsley had predominated this year, sharing the space with nettles and other weeds: 

On the flat part of the tree-shaded area there was very little cow parsley, but plenty of nettles, ground ivy, weeds and a few struggling seedling trees.

Unfortunately, although the churchyard was very pretty …

it was seriously overgrown.  Green-Gymmers may have some botanical knowledge between them, but our task was to get the rampant growth under control.    

Most of the group charged in to tackle the grassy area at the west end, which is the first part that visitors to the church see.  They – the volunteers, that is – promptly disappeared from sight.

A smaller group fought the cow parsley which had covered both the graves and the path around the slope.

By tea break time most of the grassy area was cut.

Some Green-Gymmers remained to put finishing touches to that section before moving on, eastwards.

The big ‘hippo’ bags were rapidly filled, necessitating an emergency trip to a neighbouring church to ‘borrow’ another bag.  As they were filled they were dragged around to the wall beside the road, ready for collection the next day.  That caused a degree of concern, as some of the bags were so full they were much too heavy for one person to lift over the wall.   A rapid phone call to the collector was slightly reassuring as he should have another person to help, but it would still be difficult.

When even the extra bag was full, but there was time to spare, there was still the sloping area to finish – and the flat area to tackle.  The first question was what to do with the cuttings?  It was decided to spread some of them over the lower slopes to dry and decay, and gather the rest together as the site organizers nobly volunteered to come back later and take them away.  A large number of bags filled, and still more cuttings being generated, is not a new problem for Green-Gym visits here.

Spring collection, 2017

The second question was what to do about the very young trees that were springing up.  After a learned debate it was decided that as the majority were hazel, we should coppice them in the traditional manner.  One brave little oak (where had it come from?) was left: we must look for it on our next visit!