The Tree surgeons have been busy on the park on Thursday the 26th November and have reduced a large dead oak tree to a monolith and piled the logs nearby. Standing dead would like this is very good for biodiversity and it will be colonised by lots of beetles, spiders and fungi. This is a very refreshing and enlightened attitude because not many years ago the whole tree would have been cut down to ground level and taken away for firewood.
The Osier Willows seem to have grown quite well but it was obviously just as well that we planted them on a long cutting and put Rabbit guards around the bases. It very much looks as if Muntjac have done some damage as expected. All the damage is around the outside of the planting area where they have reached over. There is a bird's nest, probably a Whitethroat in the middle of the planting!
In October 2019 a Friends Work Party cleared and area in the Osier Bed to plant Osier Willow. The last time this type of Willow was grown here would have been back in the days of Thomas Rivers and it would have been in the early part of the 20th century. The Osiers came from Sawbridgeworth Marsh Nature Reserve where they had been harvested and stood in water to keep them fresh.
.The planting took place towards the end of November 2019.
