Sloping off the green

We returned to the golf course with Glorious Grasslands today to work on another duke of burgundy habitat. This was a steep, ungrazed and unimproved area full of hawthorn of varying sizes.

Today the strategy was to remove two thirds of the scrub and leave some of the smaller hawthorn for the butterflies. This will enable the grassland to receive the maximum light and give the wildflowers a chance to thrive.

Once we had cleared a decent sized patch, I then took the brush cutter to cut the grass. It was down to about an inch so as not to disturb the larvae in the roots.

There was a load of wood to clear in the end – much more than anticipated on first looking at the site. We stacked it at both the top and bottom of the slope and the grounds team will remove it with the tractor next week.

In the evening we held the first Dursley Green Drinks of the year. Got off to a cracking start with lots of people attending, including new faces. As ever, there was a rich set of connections made as people mingled and swapped between groups.