The friends of Ightenhill were undertaking some memorial tree maintenance today.
I assisted by removing a 2×2 foot square of grass top from around the tree, Then dug down a few inches to remove a small amount of the top soil. Whilst removing some of the top soil I levelled off the areas, removed the stakes that had held the tree in place for many years, and also edged off the area with a half moon. I did this for four of their memorial trees. They returned quite happy with the work I had completed for them. I then met with playground team and parks officer to discuss possibilities for play equipment repair. The volunteers continued work on the Memorial trees, they laid mesh netting over the exposed soil area to prevent weeds from growing through. They then laid woodchip above the netting within the square boundaries which hid the netting whilst adding a lovely contrast to the grass.

After a long hiatus, the band was back together; Neil had finished invigilating, and Nixie joined us after a month off volunteering to tackle the Italian Gardens. The Italian Gardens had not been worked on since Neil and I had worked on them back in February. Nixie, Neil and I got stuck in weeding the Italian Garden beds. we pulled out Willowherb and Hairy Willowherb managing to tackle a vast amount of it across five beds in two short hours. In total we removed 5 wheel barrows worth!

I was joined by Claire and Jason who assisted me with weeding a rose bed. This rose bed was overrun with weeds, trees, and dandelions. It took the three of us two hours to weed most of the bed. Leaving a small section for the following week. 

Today marked the day of working on the circular bed outside the front of Towneley Hall by the pond and Cafe. It was overrun with self-seeded trees, brambles, and undesirable plants. They had to go. Working on the bed was Helen, Hazel, Karen, David, Jason, Mirabela, and myself. You often find when working on a circular bed that one completes work in segments, and that you end where you started.