Bracken Bashing in Old Spring Wood: 21-06-2016

If you went down to the woods today you sure had a big surprise. You would have heard sung (to the George Formby tune) 'If you could see what I can see, when I'm bashing bracken' or the oft repeated 'Sorry fern' when a basher bashed the wrong plant.

Apart from the fern backen imposters you also had 

to be careful not to bash the woodland livestock, such as this little frog.

Or you might have witnessed the variety of styles. Some had slashers, some had sticks, One basher had one of each, one in each hand. There were backstrokes, golf swings, sabre swishes and even some plain bashing with the flat of the blade. A trial dragging of a log over the bracken was abandoned at an early stage.

Tom had the bright idea of using a log as a roller to crush the stuff.

Because it wasn't heavy enough he and James 

found a bigger log and tried again.

This, too, failed. The bracken just played dead for a while.

Ros K. and Tom both tried pulling it up by the roots. 

This worked reasonably well in loose soil but took a bit longer.

A 16 strong party comprising NCV's, our student, her supervisors and James, our supervisor, went to Old Spring Wood above Summerbridge for a full day of bracken bashing.

The NCVs head off up the hill to start eradicating bracken.

Despite the bashings of previous years the bracken was back in force. We started on the top section up to the road before coffee and continued up to the western boundary by lunchtime. We then swept down in a single phalanx to do battle with the lower section of the wood.

 Bish, bash , bosh...

...take that, you bracken you.

At coffee time Phil demonstrated just how sick of bracken bashing he was, whilst Hannah gazed into the distance dreaming of her heart throb, Leonardo de Caprio..

At lunch time Ros K. brought out some delicious birthday cake. 

Thanks Ros - much appreciated.Many happy returns!

Working in a steady line (sometimes) we swept through large swathes of growth, breaking and bruising or cutting the bracken, whilst leaving the other ferns to flourish.

 Dave was given the first aid box...

...and carried around his designer handbag all day.

Luckily it wasn't needed.

It was a warm and muggy day and once James calculated we had sweated enough, he blew the final whistle. There is plenty more bracken ready for the same treatment next week.

Phil.

For any interested readers who would like to see the progress made by some trees that we planted in March 2014 at Wilson's Plantation here is what the saplings look like now. It's good to know that projects have been successful.

Then...

...and now.