Another hot day and not ideal weather conditions for planting plug plants. Members of the canoe and kayak club are going to water the plants, so we agreed to go ahead with planting. This is part of the scheme to improve the river banks that are liable to flooding – the plant communities will help stabilise the banks once established. The planting conditions were challenging; steep banks, very little soil (we dug some from elsewhere for the planting holes), but we did have easy access to the water for watering the plants.
The planting list included meadowsweet, hard rush, soft rush, common sedge, yellow flag iris, water forget me not, devil’s bit scabious, water avens, sneezewort, gypsywort, purple loosestrife, greater bird’s-foot trefoil, ragged robin, common knapweed and wild angelica. The mix will make a wonderful contribution to both the biodiversity of the river and the stability in the future.
We also pulled a bit of Himalayan balsam.