Now Autumn is here it is easy to forget the drought, but the ground is still very dry, and we need to conserve water. The surface view is lawns regreening and some hedges and shrubs putting on growth, perhaps confusing the seasons, but ponds and streams are still dry.
It was refreshing to go through a light shower while doing the Church Cycle Ride on Saturday. Going from church to church I enjoyed looking at the wonderful use of flint and plaster in these 800-year-old buildings, which now have to be expensively maintained. They are also havens for wildlife, insects hibernating in cracks and crevices, and of course ‘bats in the belfry’, and I know at our ruined St John’s, jackdaws nesting in the old tower.
While cycling round it is also good to see what excess fruit and vegetables people have put on their roadside stalls; apples, pears and beans, not so many vegetables this year, but all for a few pennies and in paper bags rather than plastic.
Yesterday we took our SWWAG display boards to the Langham Walled Garden Harvest Picnic; it is reassuring to find how many of our neighbouring villages have groups with similar aims to us.
It was interesting to talk to a member of the Suffolk Tree Warden Network. One of our rarest native trees is the Black Poplar, they do hybridise with other poplars, but when we started SWWAG we purchased, what we hope is a genetically true Black Poplar and planted it as a small whip behind the seat at The Chase, it has grown very well, now about 30 feet tall. The tree warden Network are collecting data on all Black Poplars in the country to increase the gene bank, as unusually they do not reproduce from seed.
It was refreshing to go through a light shower while doing the Church Cycle Ride on Saturday. Going from church to church I enjoyed looking at the wonderful use of flint and plaster in these 800-year-old buildings, which now have to be expensively maintained. They are also havens for wildlife, insects hibernating in cracks and crevices, and of course ‘bats in the belfry’, and I know at our ruined St John’s, jackdaws nesting in the old tower.
While cycling round it is also good to see what excess fruit and vegetables people have put on their roadside stalls; apples, pears and beans, not so many vegetables this year, but all for a few pennies and in paper bags rather than plastic.
Yesterday we took our SWWAG display boards to the Langham Walled Garden Harvest Picnic; it is reassuring to find how many of our neighbouring villages have groups with similar aims to us.
It was interesting to talk to a member of the Suffolk Tree Warden Network. One of our rarest native trees is the Black Poplar, they do hybridise with other poplars, but when we started SWWAG we purchased, what we hope is a genetically true Black Poplar and planted it as a small whip behind the seat at The Chase, it has grown very well, now about 30 feet tall. The tree warden Network are collecting data on all Black Poplars in the country to increase the gene bank, as unusually they do not reproduce from seed.