Monday, June 4, 2018

Willows on the way out

You may recall that we have been running a programme to poison all the willows. This programme was brought forward because of the willow aphid arriving from Australia causing a black sooty mould on all the understorey plants. All the poisoning is now complete. We then applied for and were successful in securing funding from the HCC community funding round to employ an arborist to remove all the willows that were at risk of falling across the tracks. This work has been started and will be continuing for a few more Wednesdays. The track network is being closed to the public on Wednesday mornings while this work is being done.

The willows that will not fall over tracks are being left to fall on their own and naturally rot down.
If there is not enough funding to complete the job this year we will apply for more funding to complete the job next year. 
Our worry now is, with all the sunlight coming in, the spring / summer weeds will be hard to control until the new canopy trees grow enough to shade them out.




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