Bank along the Windrush
A new site today with Glorious Grasslands which has lots of development potential over the next three years. Located in the Windrush valley, today was all about restoring a stunning south facing bank, that is already species rich and will become a receptor site for seeds of the very rare pasqueflower.
The site is well grazed (unusual for our steep bank sites), so today was all about removing several large hawthorn dotted in the middle, and clearing a couple of glade areas at the top to encourage the grassland further.
The trees hadn’t been pruned in a long time, and were a twisted multi stem tangle that had to be removed a branch at a time. The arisings were dragged to a habitat pile at the bottom or the top of the bank.
The thorns are particularly vicious, so eye protection was a must when handling.
Once the bulk of brash had been cleared from around the tree, the chainsaw would finish the rest. The idea is to go as low as possible to prevent bramble from amassing again around a stump. The cattle should keep any new shoots down in future.
The location is stunning. The River Windrush had over topped after the heavy weekend rain and the many hectares of adjacent floodplain meadow were covered in water – doing what it naturally wants to do.
Plant Life have marked out some specific 5 meter areas for the pasqueflower seeds, so we were careful not to disturb those. It should be a stunning sight next season.
