Opening Up The View

Another perfect job to keep the team warm was to start the clearance and tidy up of the lake side border in order to open up the view that has, for so long, been blocked out by large overgrown shrubs. The first task was to remove an old Willow tree that had recently fallen into the lake. Too heavy for the team to lift out, the New Holland tractor with the grap attachment had to be used lift it carefully out. The tree was then chopped up into sections and placed at the back of the border on the Broadwalk to create a new log pile for the insects and small mammals of Worcester college to live in.

The team worked their way along the border, with what felt like every tool from the tool shed. Every kind of chopping implement was used to cut back the large overgrown shrubs, tree saplings were dug out and leaves raked out.

All the woody, cut down material was taken down to the chipper and chipped into a ornamental wood chip mulch. The leaves were take down to the compost heaps and any unusable weedy material taken to the skip.

By the end of the day the first third of the border view had been opened up. In the coming weeks the remaining two thirds will be tidied but the shrubs not cut back so hard, the hard cut back will happen over the next few winters as the project to restore the view continues.