Another beautiful day in Adel Woods.
Today we had a team of three litter pickers, who picked up about six bags of rubbish between them, and a team of seven Friends working with David Preston, our local ranger, on Adel Bog.
When we reached Adel Bog, it looked beautiful as the morning sunlight broke through the trees.
Our task this morning was two-fold, to remove saplings and brambles from the bog and use them to strengthen the dead-hedging we started to build in September.
If you are wondering why we are doing this, the bog is a valuable habitat, and home to plants such as bog asphodel, heath spotted orchids, devil’s bit scabious, and cotton grass, and it is a lovely place to do some conservation work. A hundred and twenty years ago it was much more extensive, stretching a further 100 metres or so to Adel Pond, but it has gradually been taken over by trees. That process is continuing as saplings and brambles dry out the soil.
A further problem is that, as it has dried out in the recent dry summers, people have created paths across it, causing further damage. To try and protect the bog we have been creating a “dead hedge” as a natural barrier to deter people from walking across it. A dead hedge is simply a fence made with natural materials – stakes of wood, interwoven with brambles, branches, sprigs of holly and the like.
Friends of Adel Woods 