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 vigorous grasses and is sown in the Autumn. Other wildflower seeds will be sown in the Spring.

After that, we went to Caldecott School to join the main group. Here are some photos. Unfortunately, we have no "before" ones or people working.

The wildflower patch



 

The heap of cut vegetation



Patches where we sowed yellow rattle

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