Nature Near London: Tolworth Brook coppicing etc. Tuesday November 13th

As the Environment Trust's new Kingston project gathers pace, our volunteers returned to the Tolworth Brook to improve the area for people and wildlife. The Raeburn Avenue car park has a reputation amongst the local as somewhere that anti-social drinking etc. is a recognised issue. The aim of today's task was to open up the wooded areas a little, to improve sight lines and also to provide the young oak trees with more light and reduced competition from other shrubs. Apparently, there used to be an open-air swimming pool on the car park site. While all trace of the pool has gone, the hazel trees, oaks and hawthorn planted on the fringes of the car park are all the same age. Consequently, the uncoppiced hazel has over-shaded the oak trees resulting in all the leaves sprouting from the top of the trees, rather than evenly on all sides. To improve this situation, surrounding hazel trees were coppiced (a traditional form of woodland management) to improve the health of the oaks and create a more diverse age structure. This form of management will also hopefully allow wildflowers to germinate which will benefit insects and thus birds. To help things along, a few wood anemone (Anemone nemorosa) rhizomes were planted.
As well as managing the young woodland, the group removed several large items of rubbish from the area, including an inflatable mattress and an old, and extremely heavy, boiler. Quadron Services, kindly provided a trailer to allow disposal of the rubbish.