– Written by Joanna Houseman
Greener Tywyn Gwrydd volunteers recently had two busy sessions with an autumn tidy up of the forest garden at the high school.
In the first session we trimmed the willow planted earlier in the year, most of which seems to have taken really well and will grow to form a natural wind break for the rest of the garden and also give us some interesting opportunities for learning about working with willow in the future.
We also had a go at tackling the long grass with hand sickles that had been loaned and donated by members of the community (and kindly cleaned up by Keith and the members of Shed Egryn in Llanegryn). This proved quite an easy task as this years growth is largely superficial and the roots are not deep.
We also prepared a patch of the grass area for the sewing of Yellow rattle seeds and cleared more of the pathway and once again around the base of all the fruit trees.
In the second session we continued to clear the grass from the pathways and also more around the trees.
Sally sewed the yellow rattle seeds (Rhinanthus Minor) in the pre-prepared area. You can read more about this plant here. Excited to see if they are successful!
We planted some walking onions in various places and also some perpetual rocket and some ox head daisies. We’re very pleased to see how well the strawberries are doing, they are really starting to spread and forming a blanket cover on the ground which will discourage the grass in these areas.
The other perrenials herbs and plants we brought in all seem to be doing well and we have many different plants which have established themselves creating a thriving habitat for birds and insects of all kinds. We’re also pleased to report that there were pears this year on one of the trees! We used the session to observe the biodiversity that has come to life in this area in just 18 months, the number of flowers still blooming in mid November was astonishing, I hope you enjoy the photos of some of the flowers and bugs we found…
Thank you so much to all of our tireless volunteers and to the school for allowing this project to continue. We were so pleased to see that the students have been making hedgehog houses and bug hotels and placing them in the garden area to encourage even more wildlife.
Next on the list will be pruning the fruit trees which will be done later in the season under the instruction of an RHS trained volunteer ☺. Hope to see you there!