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Southern Town Park, Abingdon - Saturday 12th October 2024

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 Blog by Eleanor, photos by Michele and Eleanor                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 It was the time of year to cut down and rake our wildflower patch in Southern Town Park. There were only ten of us this time and our usual meeting place, the youth football club car park in Lambrick Way was jam packed with cars as there were a number of matches going on. Fortunately, some of us had come by bike. Bikes and tools along the fence We made our way down to the site at the far end beyond the playing pitches. The ground was very soft, so we decided to pull up as many nettles as possible as well as rosebay
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Cothill Fen SSSI - Saturday, 5 October 2024

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Blog by Sally, photos by Margaret and Sally On a glorious sunny morning, 8 Green Gymmers gathered in the Cothill School car park to meet Stephanie Cole from Natural England for our session at Cothill Fen, a site of Special Scientific Interest and home to the variety of rare alkaline-tolerant plants and the invertebrates they attract.  Green Gym have been coming to this site for well over a decade and it has been wonderful to see the transformation during this time to restore it.  We were last here in August.  Adrian was our leader this week and both he and Steph had been working at Cothill Fen the day before at the regular monthly session with the NE volunteers.  Once we had gathered up the tools, we made our way along String Lane to the gate to the new board walk, where we would make our camp at its wider point.   Our tasks for the day were to continue fixing chicken wire along the board walk to help prevent slips, especially when the boards are wet or icy, and to rake up the cut mate
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Thrupp Green - Saturday 28th September 2024

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 Blog by Eleanor, photos by David, Sally, Michele and Ursula This session was a joint effort between Green Gym, the Abingdon Naturalists Green Team and Radley Lakes volunteers. The work site was one of the fly ash filled former gravel pits in an area not open to the public and the task was to scythe and rake up the grass to make the area suitable for ground nesting lapwings. After the torrential rain of the past week, we had not been certain until Friday that the task could go ahead, but luckily there was enough dry ground to work on. After a long trek following the old railway track, carrying all the tools, we arrived at the site. The day had started off very cold, but the sun came out and the blue sky and warmth were very welcome. The first task for some people was to cut back some overhanging willow branches to make access easier, but this did not take long. Meanwhile, the scythers began scything. Work begins Soon, there was plenty of grass to rake up and carry to the heaps in the w
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Elizabeth Daryush Garden, Boars Hill - Saturday 21st September 2024

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 Blog by Eleanor, photos by Sally and Eleanor This Saturday we were at Elizabeth Daryush Garden, Boars Hill. It used to be part of a private garden, which was donated to the Oxford Preservation Trust, and consists of acid grassland, which is comparatively rare in Oxfordshire. There were eleven Green Gymmers plus three volunteers from OPT and even with this number, we wondered if there would be enough of us to complete the various tasks that needed to be done. It had been raining during the night and was still cloudy, so we were hoping that the weather would be kind to us. Sally, our leader for the session explained the various tasks, which had been set out by Rod, OPT's consultant ecologist. We needed to cut back bracken and bramble growing among the broom bushes, remove a forsythia which was a garden escape, cut sprouting shoots and overhanging branches from the sweet chestnut, cut back branches from the woodland area, remove sprouting willow from the pond, also remove crassula, a
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