Our John Muir Award Diary: August Session at the Wetlands

We had by far the worst weather of all our sessions at Arundel today...IN AUGUST, it poured and the boys didn't have coats! They were prepared in as much as they took gardening gloves and wore long trousers but were soaked to the skin by the time they had finished their outdoor task which was to weed around and monitor the hedgerow saplings they planted back in April.

Armed with secateurs they worked as a single file team to chop away nettles, thistles, bramble, cow parsley, willow herb and dock. Connor stayed the other side of the hedgerow to pile the thrown weeds into tidy piles, he was regularly attacked by flying brambles and nettles!

They noticed that the thistle was thicker away from tree coverage suggesting they grow stronger in more sunlight and through discussion they observed that it was mostly 75/80% thistle followed by cow parsley and dock growing in the area. The weeds had grown exponentially in comparison to the saplings, taking over and strangling their progress.

Monica and the team decided to leave a controlled area at one end of the hedge to let the weeds grow freely to see what impact it has on the growth of the saplings.

During this mission, the younger group were bug hunting and one child enthusiastically came over with a tiny newt inside a spotting jar; a welcome and exciting distraction. Unfortunately I was too slow to get a photo as Monica was keen it was returned to its home as soon as possible being such a young juvenile.

When the weeding was complete, the braver of the group wanted to stay outside for their turn to bug hunt and successfully spotted wood louse, spiders, a millipede and empty snail shells. The rest of the group headed indoors to dry off and took a snack break which for Nath and Connor involved hot chocolate...yes IN AUGUST!!!

Fortunately the remainder of the session was indoors and the team got to handle some captured moths in spotting jars which had been sedated in the fridge, before creating and assembling their own bug hotels to take home and position in the garden. The Wetlands provided dried reeds, tubes, cups, straw, shredded paper etc and of course each child came up with their own unique and individual designs.