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www.bradleystokejournal.co.uk
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May 2018
News
Bradley Stoke in Bloom spring 2018 report By Sara Messenger of Bradley Stoke in Bloom (BSiB)
Big Spring Clean
I had put in a request for good weather, but I think the email got lost as we took part in the annual Big Spring Clean on what must have been one of the coldest days of the year! Although we only went from the Brook Way Activity Centre to Patchway Brook Roundabout, and then onto the Aztec West Roundabout, we managed to collect 22 bags, as well as a strange assortment of other rubbish. We stopped at the central verge on the A38 to cut back the bramble which has been annoying me for the last year (when we get a spare afternoon, we plan to replace it with some periwinkle), but by lunchtime it was below zero degrees, and we could no longer feel our fingers or toes, so we called it a day and
managed to get home just as the snow came down. Several additional hours have been spent, mainly at The Common East, cleaning off graffiti and picking up empty cans and pizza boxes, smashed glass and another used syringe, which is not really how I want to spend my afternoon off!
The Common East
We received an email from South Gloucestershire Council (SGC) informing us that the pond here was overflowing. We checked the overflow pipe and cleared away some debris that was slowing the drainage. Feeling accomplished, we were a bit surprised a few minutes later when a dog walker pointed out that the water was now flooding the road around the corner! And it was! The road was
BSiB volunteers with the rubbish collected on their Big Spring Clean day
now ankle deep in pond water. The good news was that we could identity it by the large amount of duck weed we’d managed to get out of the pond. We checked the ditch, which was clear, but talking to residents we found out that the drain leading to the ditch has been blocked for a couple of years and, although it has been reported to StreetCare several times, nothing has yet been done. We’ve also reported it to StreetCare and there is nothing else that we can do. The pond was brimming with frogspawn, which hopefully has now turned into tadpoles. I have read that a large clump of frogspawn can have 2,000 eggs in it, but only five of those would live long enough to breed, but I’m hoping that, with no large fish in the pond, the frogs here will fare better than most. One of our decoy ducks, Kate, made a bid for freedom, so it was removed so that we can repair her tether,
and it looks as though all our bird boxes are in use again this year. In the orchard, our attempt at hedgelaying was successful and it is already springing back to life. Contractors employed by SGC took down the tall ash in the orchard which overshadowed a neighbour’s front door and trimmed the oak tree. They also took down several dead trees from along the hedge line and removed a tree that had fallen onto a back garden fence on Cornfield Close. As a favour to us, they also shredded the numerous Christmas trees that littered the cut through and have left us the bark chippings for the paths. Once they had finished, Ceri and I pruned the orchard and repaired the old dead hedge. We also reseeded our wildflower patches in the orchard and we’re hoping that the kidney vetch thrives again, as this is the only plant that supports the life cycle of the rare small blue butterfly.
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