Frilford Heath SSSI, 11th June 2016

By Andrew -
This session saw the first of our visits this year to Woodhaven,  Frilford to pull up Himalayan Balsam. The day was cloudy with a few spots of rain after several days of warm, fine weather. There were twelve volunteers altogether, including three who hadn't been to this site before. We walked alongside the meadow and across the bridge leading to the SSSI area, looked after by Natural England. In the woodland area there was a fallen tree across the path, which provided an opportunity for a sawing and lopping task.

The centre of the woodland, which we had worked on for several years, was encouragingly free of Himalayan Balsam so we spread out further and soon found several patches. We worked hard on eradicating these until tea break time. Dieuwke had provided us with chocolate brioches and pain aux raisins, which were a very welcome treat.

We found plenty to keep us busy until the end of the session. We are expecting plenty more balsam to have become visible by the time of our next visit in two weeks' time. We were lucky with the weather again as the rain held off until we were setting off home.
-Eleanor


Graham tackles a fallen tree 


Janet, Ursula and Dieuwke

Himalayan Balsam, not yet in flower

Tea break

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