Boundary House Fen - Saturday, 23 December 2023
Blog post by Sally, Photos by Sally and JimB For our penultimate session of 2023, we returned to Boundary House Fen on Frilford Heath Golf Course SSSI to continue with the cut and rake on 23 December and we had a glorious morning for it with plenty of sunshine and clear blue skies. Four of us met in the greenkeepers' compound and made our way to the Fen where we were met by Rod d'Ayala and then later joined by Barbara, who had cycled from Abingdon. Rod gave us our instructions. Alison and Sally were asked to clear the area to the left hand side of the stream (which is acting as a ditch, draining the fen) and were later joined by Barbara, whilst Jim was asked to cut the area of tall reed that was being overtaken by bramble around the perimeter next to the Boundary House itself. We had to take care to avoid cutting a tussock-forming grass, identified by its keel where the leaves emerge from their stem. These tussocks create microhabitats for small invertebrates and plants...