Next Up – Can you spare one hour, without any commitment, on Saturday (10.8.24) 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.

• Prioritising the wheelbarrowing and spreading of continued woodchip on the south slope (with immense gratitude to Paul Richards – local tree surgeon). This will help to temporarily suppress the dominant weeds, provide hydration and replace humus prior to substantial tree and shrub planting in autumn.

• 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:

• Extra wheelbarrows if possible.
• Sturdy boots, garden gloves (essentials)
• 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.

Thank You to our good friend Ben Greenaway (Mersey Forest) who donated 18 tree whips from a dismantled Tatton Park display and alongside our amazing volunteers achieved the following:

• Dug a trench and healed in and watered 18 substantial tree whips.
• Dug out the regrowing bramble roots at the top of the North Slope and used the lawnmower to manage further regrowth, in preparation for a picnic/viewing area.
• Continued raking debris from the West area, courtesy of Jill during the midweek.
• Sarah (Saxon Tree Surgeons) very kindly provided a small amount of mulch to surround the newly planted donated trees.
• Anne (neighbour) for kindly providing the water.
• Mersey Forest have recently been 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/

Pictured: A huge thank you to Ben (Mersey Forest), Diane, Sarah (Saxon Tree Services), Dave, Joanne, Joan and Colin and Frank not pictured.

Overall, our one-hour sessions over the last 40 consecutive weeks have resulted in collecting 243 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.

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

Saxon Tree Services.

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61555652425418

https://www.saxontrees.co.uk/

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