Friday 18th June 2010: Boar’s Well Urban Wildlife Reserve

smiling in the drizzlesmiling in the drizzle Today we began our summer management programme to ensure access to the Reserve is good, and to help the biodiversity of the site by controlling the Japanese Knotweed and Himalayan Balsam. Luckily it was raining in the morning so we were dressed in long sleeves - this protected us from the worst of the nettles even though many of us complained of sore wrists by the end of the day.

The Japanese Knotweed, though significantly reduced from when we began our campaign many years ago, is still hanging on. It would be good to explore injecting herbicide into the hollow stems to try and tackle the last bits as the task gets more unpleasant the more other species are colonising amongst it. We would not want to spray it on the leaves as this would be detrimental to the other plants.

One team of volunteers cleared over hanging branches and mowed the path edges.

It was pleasing to see that the yellow rattle seed that that we sowed last year has germinated and the plants are flowering. We will need to poach the soil later in the summer so new seed will germinate.

13 volunteers were involved today.