New Forest Conservation Volunteers Lend a Hand

Visitors to Ballard Water Meadow over the last few weeks will have noticed that the Friends have been undertaking tree removal in Woar Copse. As mentioned before on this site, this involves removing the invasive holly trees to allow the planting of more wildlife friendly trees, let more light into the heart of the woodland and encourage the growth of the native oaks. This will also encourage a better spread of wildflowers and will bring the woods to life.

The whole operation was given a boost this weekend as the Friends of Ballard Water Meadow spent five hours on Sunday with the New Forest Conservation Volunteers. On their annual visit to the water meadows, twelve NFCV volunteers worked with five of the Friends to help clear another tranche of twenty holly trees that were intertwined with the oak trees.

Lovely autumn weather with sunshine and enough breeze to keep the workers cool blessed us as we secateured and sawed their way through the prickly tangle of branches.

The resulting brash will be burned and the logs will be used as path edgings to deter walkers from wandering on to the area where native hazel will be planted in the spring. As the hazel grows it will prevent the rapid spread of bramble that tends to choke all the other plants that would otherwise grow there. Before too long we hope to see bluebells and wood anemones spreading into the cleared areas. Light loving butterflies should also be attracted as the sun will then be able to penetrate the tree canopy. Other insects will also proliferate as the edging logs decay.

We are very grateful for the help provided by the New Forest Conservation Volunteers this weekend - we have managed to move on considerably the clearance operation in the woods of Ballard Water Meadow. Nonetheless, there is still work to do so, if you are in the woods on a Friday or Sunday morning over the next few weeks, please be aware there will be tree felling and clearance taking place.

However, you will certainly start to see the benefits of the work over the next few years.