Heavy challenges

Regular visitors will probably have noticed the dead oak tree along the front drive just after the cattle grid that fell down earlier this year. We needed to wait for the ground to dry out on the park before we attempted to move it away from the road and last week we faced the challenge of how to move the massive trunk - oak is heavy!

Talking through the options and deciding where to start

The front park is within the SSSI (site of special scientific interest)  that we have for the deadwood invertebrates that live in and around our veteran trees so the fallen tree needed to stay within the area but away from the road. Ideally we would have kept the tree in one piece but despite hiring the largest manitou that we could, we could not get it to budge. Our other option was to borrow a powerful winch and pull the tree across the ground but this would have dug deep into the earth and left a scar on the park. We agreed that the trunk would have to be cut, moved in pieces and then put back together as closely as possible in its new resting place so that it could be left to decay and provide vital habitat for the many beetles and other beasties that thrive here.

Once we had made the cuts we managed to lift each piece carefully with the manitou and carry them to the other side of the park. Even in pieces the machine was working hard - we estimate that the whole trunk must have weighed between 10 and 12 tonnes!

It's all about balance!

This week we also had the challenge of welcoming 40 Barclays Bank employees who were volunteering with us for the day. The group worked hard and completed every task that we had prepared - removing a line of hurdle fencing, painting the fence around Gardeners Cottage, raking the cut grass around the Mile Walk, washing the Bee House and white benches on the Bee Lawn and collecting bluebell seeds to be scattered around some of our woods where the bluebells are scarce. Fantastic!