This summer we have continued to manage the common, controlling the vigorous seasonal growth of brambles tangling the paths, and plants such as the bracken and rosebay willow herb invading grassland where we would prefer other plants to thrive.
We have also continued to try to develop the area below Village Road where we hope to restore a useful area of gorse behind a potential picnic area around the oak trees. We are pleased that some people have used the area to relax on the common.
The Grassland
After writing about the benefit we hoped to enjoy from having the Dexter cattle grazing, we haven’t been offered them. So we will be employing Pete Whipp using a mechanical scythe who is understanding of our ambition to have the grass cut to our prescription, which means that we will set up a regime to cut some areas and leave others, allowing creatures which depend upon grassland habitats to survive and propagate their next generation.
The fruit on the common is looking plentiful this autumn, especially the apples. There are four well developed trees bearing good quantities of apples and there are more maturing. We hope to cultivate more fruit in our informal orchard.
Graham Thorne