Rhododendron Bashing at Coed y Cwm Nature Reserve 25-02-12

This Saturday (25/02/2012) saw the return of our volunteers to Coed y Cwm, to help with the control of rhododendron, an invasive Himalayan species that has, unfortunatly, spread throughout the UK since its introduction in the Victorian times. This invasive plant is a particular problem in acid woodlands, where it out competes our native species

It was another day which saw us lopping away at the the bushes to get them down to a point where we could then saw the main stems down to ground level and then using mattocks to dig out their root balls, which spread laterally rather than deep down. While most of our volunteers went to work cutting, a small group went about burning what ACV had cut a few weeks before.

A big thanks goes out to our volunteers who gave up their Saturday, to come on task to get the work done!!

Making our Garden Sustainable....

As we come to the end of our first grant funding for the Campus Garden, £600 given by AberGuild, we are looking to the future.

So far the garden is rather an ornamental and fruitful affair, in the future, we hope to include raised veg beds so that students can save money by growing their own, as well as experimenting with some weird and wonderful breeds.

Map of Penglais Campus

We've already purchased an absolute bargain of a digital camera from eBay (£6.99!!) as well as some second-hand gardening books from the Oxfam book shop in town.

We've still got another £300 of grant to spend from the O2 Think Big Project on gravel paths and more essentials. 

(http://www.o2thinkbig.co.uk/Projects/Project-Home/?clubId=1767)

Which also has the potential to access even more money as well as training for individuals involved.

Old Chapel Farm 18-2-12

After a phone call on Friday afternoon informing us that Saturday's task would have to be cancelled  due to poor weather, sadly  it looked unlikley that we were able to go out on Saturday, until  our president Ally managed to organise a new task in record breaking time (applause please :) ). So  on Saturday morning we set off to Powys (in the rain) for the third task of second semester working in Old Chapel Farm, a place ACV had worked at before, and had built steps during the residential last semester.

This time around we were coppicing,planting trees and creating a path. Only a few photos were taking on this task, because Ally the usual photographer was busy filming the task for our youtube video which will be edited and be up on the youtube channel soon! 

You can check out our youtube channel here

http://www.youtube.com/user/AberConservation?feature=mhee.

Coppicing and moving wood of the track.

The ACV team.

 The weather on Saturday was quite sporadic, after expecting to be working all day in the rain we were pleasantly surprised when it stopped raining and  we saw the blue skies , only to be surprised by a hailstorm later in the day. The most special part of Saturday's weather had to be the snow at the end of the day, luckily by this point we were in the farmhouse drinking tea and eating delicios homemade scones, it was a beautiful scene to watch.

It seemed that our last minute  rearranged task worked out for the best after all!



Ynys Hir 11-2-2012

For the second task of the semester ACV returned to a regular site, the RSPB reserve on the Dyfi estuary at Ynys Hir. Previously ACV have worked on the peat bog at Ynys Hir, but this time Neil the warden explained that as we were visiting earlier in the year, we'd be doing coppicing work in one of the wooded areas instead. Thirteen volunteers armed with bowsaws and loppers set about thinning out some very overcrowded mixed woodland.

To begin with the woodland needed to be tidied up, after some earlier clearing work had left a lot of wood to stack up. But after that was finished, ACV quickly got into more exciting work, taking out all but the largest trees to thin out the wood. The piles soon began building up with more scrub and logs:

After lunch Ben offered to help clear out the clogged-up drainage ditch nearby, which turned out to be a very smelly and muddy job! For the rest of the group the felling and clearing continued, with good teamwork seeing to the larger and more stubborn trees. By the end of the afternoon, the site had transformed from a jungle back to a spacious, open woodland, and best of all, the coppiced trees will grow back and help the wood regenerate. For the short term, they helped us make lots of firewood!



Coed y Cwm Nature Reserve 4-2-2012

Our volunteers had a very wet day in the woodland, as we helped with the control of rhododendron. This is an invasive Himalayan species which was introduced in Victorian times for its wide range of flower colour and forms, as well as it’s glossy evergreen foliage. Unfortunately, it spread throughout the UK and is especially a problem in acid woodlands, where it out-competes our native species.

  It took a lot of lopping to get the bushes down to a size where we could mattock out their root balls – which spread laterally rather than deep. Coed y Cwm has a deep V-cut valley to it’s small stream, so steep, volunteers had to shimmy up and down a rope to get the rhododendron out off the banks! All this while another group tackled the jungle of bushes 7-8ft tall!