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!