On Saturday (3.8.24), the Friends of Maghull & District (FOMD) volunteers continued with the green restoration work at Rowlands Dell. We will be joined by our good friends Mersey Forest who are celebrating the planting of 185,924 trees in Cheshire and Merseyside in the last planting season (October – March), and will be planting some donated trees. https://www.merseyforest.org.uk/news/community-set-to-benefit-following-bumper-tree-planting-season/

Thank You to the amazing volunteers for undertaking the following work:

• South Slope: spot this spraying of new bramble growth prior to future new planting.
• North Slope we continued finishing the final section near the path by raking and removing debris.
• Regrowth of damaging Ivy up some of the trees was removed by Christine
• Litter picking continued courtesy of Diane who focused on the Dell, the local car park and even the canal pathway.
• Continued access to the underlying polluting debris and litter, through raking.
• 4 bin bags of rubbish were transported to the tip.
• More Rubble debris was transported to the tip
• Brushed Path.
• Planted a dozen donated woodland themed plants in a holding area with many thanks to Malcolm.
• We were also heartened to receive a visit from George’s granddaughter who came to visit his donated tree which had a strong attachment between her and her grandmother who sadly died last year.

Pictured: A huge thank you to Christina, Christine Diane, Rob, and Diane (H), Colin and Frank not pictured.

Next Up – Can you spare one hour, without any commitment, on Saturday (3.8.24) meeting at 10.00 in the Dell (adjacent to the Hare & Hounds Pub). This beautiful haven for wildlife has been treated as an open tip for decades, where every inch is revealing a variety of pollutants harmful to wildlife. We hope to remove all the debris this summer and commence a huge programme of planting and rewilding in Autumn, that will be healthy for wildlife and humans, whilst ultimately preventing building on yet another perceived neglected green space.

 Main Tasks.

• Mersey Forrest will be joining us to donate 18 substantial tree whips from their dismantled Tatton Park display to be healed in, to the ground temporarily. In addition, we will temporarily plant a donated rhododendron courtesy of Rachel.

• Time permitting we will continue raking out the huge amounts of harmful to wildlife debris that has accumulated from over 30 years of sad neglect (eg vegetation, rubble and litter), down the final part of the north slope and continuing along the worst west section.

Equipment. All you will need are:

• Sturdy boots, garden gloves (essentials)
• Spade (essential) for planting donated trees and plants.
• Ground ivy and debris removal: please bring litter picker, garden fork, rigid soil rake (essential) not a lawn rake, to remove some of the embedded litter.

• If you are interested in helping to remove the ground Ivy to enable us to access the debris beneath, please bring a brush cutter/strimmer, protective glasses.

Overall, our one-hour sessions over the last 39 consecutive weeks have resulted in collecting 241 bin bags of litter, a huge and shameful array of polluting debris and tons of tree and wall damaging Ivy, with multiple trips to the recycling centre.

We have received some wonderful feedback and are clearly seeing the difference every time we are there.

A huge thank you once again for your generous support of our group, you really are amazing and making such a massive difference to our community at so many levels.

Looking forward to seeing you.

Friends of Maghull & District (FOMD)

Together Making Maghull a better place to live.

More information and for any last-minute changes please check ‘Events’ at: www.fomd.co.uk

Contact: admin@fomd.co.uk

#fomdcic #Maghull #Environment