Ock Valley Walk, Town End, 19th October 2013

By Andrew -
We met by the bridge over the weir to start our tidy up of the town end of the Ock Walk. The tasks were to clear around the young trees, cut vegetation back from the wood chip path, which had become very overgrown, pick up litter and plant bulbs for the Spring.

We were joined a bit later by Mayor Samantha, who helps us when mayoral duties allow, with baby Charlotte.

As October had been very mild with no frost, the nettles had not died back and we even found some Himalayan Balsam still in flower. It was hard work clearing patches to plant the bulbs but at least the ground was soft because of the recent rain. Fortunately the rain held off during the morning.

After the coffee break some of us turned our attention to planting the bulbs, though some further raking and pulling up of nettles needed to be done first. We planted crocuses around the memorial tree and wild flower bulbs in three patches we had cleared. These comprised wood anemones, wild garlic, English bluebells, fritillaries and wild daffodils. We hope that most of these will flower before the nettles grow up and smother everything again.

By the end of the session, we had collected several bags of litter and made the area much tidier and it was after 12.30 as we made our way back to the bridge.
- Eleanor


Ursula cutting back nettles

Kevin and Carolyn by the young trees


James, Samantha and baby Charlotte

coffee break

planting around the memorial tree


Margaret planting wild flower bulbs

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