On a cloudy Saturday morning, Anna from Friends of Grove Farm welcomed three GoodGymers: Madhan and Kash from GoodGym Ealing and Hounslow's Emily to a monthly conservation day at Grove Farm Nature Reserve.

The task was what GoodGymers like Emily and Kash like the most: bramble bashing ✂️🪓💥! Madhan was new to that skill but, after brief training and some practice, he was a pro at wielding the shears and exterminating invasive plants!

Why are the brambles invaders? - you may ask. They block the sunlight to the woodland floor and prevent the beautiful wood anemones from flowering in the spring. Fun fact: when Kash first heard "wood anemones", she could only interpret the sound as "wooden enemies" - that's a better alias for the villainous brambles!

GoodGymers were warmly welcomed by the community working at the nature reserve today - not only the Friends of Grove Farm but also guests from LAGER Can and Ealing Wildlife Group.

We found out about plants called wild service trees 🌳 which are rare native trees, indicating that the site where they grow was once an ancient woodland. We saw one of those VIP trees - it had its own plaque and looked very special, wow!

At the end of the session, every GoodGymer was awarded an honour to plant a tree at the Grove Farm. Because Emily had to make a move soon, Madhan became a father of not one but two little trees! 🌱🌱

We were shocked when Anna told us that Ealing Council is planning to remove the protective status of Metropolitan Open Land from Grove Farm. It is a designation that prevents green areas from being built on. There is a petition to oppose the plan and protect Grove Farm reserve from being lost forever - some of us already signed it - takes less than 5 minutes to do!

We hope Grove Farm will remain intact as a wild place offering relief from the hustle and bustle of city life and we are looking forward to another conservation day to help the place thrive.