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Matthew Arnold Field, Boars Hill - Saturday 26th September 2026

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Blog by Eleanor, photos by Julio and Margaret We had a really good turnout for our work party at Matthew Arnold Field - eighteen volunteers in all.  Official plaque Matthew Arnold Field, like several sites on Boars Hill, is owned by Oxford Preservation Trust. We met at the end of Jarn Way and went into the field. While we were waiting for Rod d'Ayala, who manages the site, Barbara gave us a safety briefing. Safety briefing When Rod arrived, he took us over to the far side of the field and showed us what needed to be done. Briefing by Rod There were brambles and bracken by the fence to be scythed and raked up, so some people stayed to do that. The scythers get their scythes ready The rest of us went through the gate into the wooded area and down into the valley fen. here, there was also scything and raking to be done and a lot of sprouting willow needed to be cut down. It was quite tricky to find our way through the gap in the dead hedge and down into the fen. The upper part has a ...
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Boundary House Fen, Frilford Heath Golf Course - Saturday, 19th September 2026

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Blog by Sally.  Photos by Julio and Sally On a fine, but slightly overcast morning, we returned to Boundary House Fen on Frilford Heath Golf Course to continue with the autumn cut and rake, working under the direction of consultant ecologist, Rod d'Ayala.  Rod briefed the group and set the scythers off to cut the fresh re-growth since we last visited the site, and asked the remainder of the group to rake the cut material from his recent stint at brush-cutting.  We were assisted by one of his colleagues, Sam.  There were 6 scythers among us and 8 rakers. One of the tasks was to cut the growing vegetation from around the main runnel, which had been created to divert water from the stream to re-wet the fen as part of the restoration project.  Some years ago, the stream had been dug out and has acted like a ditch, draining water from the fen.  Other scythers were asked to go to the far side of the fen and continue with the cut of the new growth of reed and rush...
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Southern Town Park - Saturday 12th September 2026

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 Blog by Eleanor, photos by Eleanor and Adrian While the main Green Gym group were tackling the neglected forest school garden at Caldecott School, Dieuwke, Joan, Rosie, David and I went to our wildflower patch in Southern Town Park. This is one of "our" sites, along with both ends of the Ock Path, and it is important that we are not so busy working for other groups or organisations that we neglect these sites. Adrian had already been there to scythe and rake the area. This is a task which is done in the Autumn after the flowers have shed their seed. The cut material is raked off as soon as possible to prevent nutrients leaching into the soil, which would encourage too much grass to grow. Wildflowers need poor soil. The patch had been somewhat taken over by hogweed during the Summer. David had brought his scythe and cut down more hogweed growing to one side of the area. The rest of us cleared patches and sowed yellow rattle seed. Yellow rattle is parasitic on some types of vi...
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Caldecott Primary School - Saturday, 12th September 2026

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Blog by Sally.  Photos by Julio, Michele and Sally Looking at our autumn programme, you'd be forgiven for thinking we couldn't be in two places at once, but we were!  With two willing leaders and sites within close proximity to each other, Adrian led a party of 15 at Caldecott Primary School to tidy up their forest school site, including new members, Catherine and Phil, whilst Eleanor led a session at Southern Town Park (more of which in a separate blog) for the autumn cut and rake of the wildflower patch, as we would be hard-pushed otherwise to fit in two separate sessions for both of these lovely local sites.  Adrian had given a head start to the Southern Town Park site, by scything and raking the main wildflower patch earlier in the week, so that the group could then join the rest of us at the School at break time. We'd been given permission to park in the School's car park, where we met Amy from the School, who explained that she wanted us to clear the forest school...
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