Ever fancy seeing the local fauna and flora of the Himalayas? Well you don't have to go too far, especially not for the good people of Berrylands who are over grown with Himalayan Balsam. We were in a race against spawning time to pull up as many as we can and take back the Hogsmill area from these invasive plants!

A last minute cry/email for help from the friends of Berrylands was answered by Kate and Rob for a good start to the week and a bit of balsam bashing!

Not letting those environmentally friendly - but - enemies - to - human - skin nettles or the size of the task deter us, we set to work pulling and twisting and then snapping and piling up the Balsam. An indent was made into the balsam forest and soon we flooded through and met with the other side, it was like the channel tunnel/ butterfly mission all over again.

One small step for human kind, in one giant area of Balsam on Berrylands nature reserve.

Hey Richmond - we reckon our mission was more Balsam than yours tonight! 😀

For all those that missed the fun - DON'T PANIC - there is talk of this being repeated for the next 2 Mondays or until all the Balsam is bashed...