No practical jokes for this April Fool’s Day…

Fortunately this morning the rain held off and we gathered on the pathway below Petersham Road for another session on tree planting.

Today we started with oak and hornbeam trees, looking for spaces with limited tree cover to allow plenty of light for the oak in particular, and ensuring a good space between each.

We used the slot planting technique, making sure to get all the roots under the soil but not too deep, the biggest challenge being to achieve this on the fairly steep bank up from the pathway.

After finishing with the first lot of trees, we moved on to smaller trees to provide nesting spots for birdlife. These could be planted closer together and we got through 3 buckets in very short order.

All told we planted 175 trees in the session, a very satisfying way to start the weekend!

Part of our mammoth tree planting task at Petersham Common. An absolute pleasure to welcome GoodGymmers from other areas, and first timers Andreeca, Anastasia, Tim and Laura. What a brilliant first task to be part of: creating a lasting legacy in our beautiful green borough.

Ken gave us a brief introduction to the Common and woodlands restoration which included restoring the middle layer of the woodland. He explained how there was an upper canopy and ground floral plain but how the woodlands was mismanaged for around 50 years and had the middle understory canopy removed regularly. We were helping to plant 25,000 trees to restore this vital habitat where most of our native songbirds nest in the understory between the ground and 5m height.

Ken gave us a demonstration of how to plant a tree and told us about how it was vital to get the plant at the right level in relation to the roots and the stem so it had a good chance of survival.

We set about into the woods with native trees soaking their roots in buckets of water and started planting bird blocks of trees happily chatting away with each other. In no time we had planted 500 trees between us and Ken was very pleased with our work and thanked all of us from the Petersham Common Conservators.

We are back to plant more on Monday 6th March, sign up for the session to join us.

7 goodgymers made their way, by bike, foot and public transport to the regular task of the Richmond Furniture Scheme. Getting straight to it with a litter pick to make the outside area more attractive Sam and Adam grabbed a broom or two and started sweeping. Resourceful types we fixed the broom that was losing its head, (like Arsenal nearly did later that day), and made short work of the tidy up. Sam decided a window mop and a snow scoop was the best tool for the job, but it seemed to do a pretty good job.

Emma, and Beth returned for GoodGym tasks 3 and 4 respectively and were quick to muck in and help. Nadine had been roped in early to dragging Henry the hoover around the place, and we didn’t realise it but she was covertly completing her first GoodGym task.

Moving on to furniture we made light work of moving a lamp to the sold storage, and hunted about for other things that could be moved. An hour or so later and we were on our merry way for coffee and cake, finally able to say hi properly to Nadine. Well done everyone, especially those new comers. So good to have you as part of the gang today!

It was a mild Saturday morning as a perfect 10 goodgymers gathered on the Ham Lands for our monthly task helping out the Friends of Ham Lands.

This time around, we were working on a section of pathway through the woods close to the path between Teddington Lock and the road. Sharon was there to welcome us with a wheelbarrow full of tools and we spread out along the pathway armed with loppers, shears and forks to get to work.

There was a good crowd in all, as the Friends had also turned out in force, and we quickly started to make an impact, clearing brambles from the sides of the pathway. Cutting them back was often the straightforward part, but we needed to get their roots up too, to stem the tide of their return. This was a job for forks and the mattock, which we deployed to great effect to dig out the roots.

As usual it was around the 11 o’clock mark that the merry chatter amongst the gang started to turn to the delights of the Swiss Bakery, and half an hour later we downed tools and posed for a group shot before heading off for a well deserved coffee.

We will be back again on 11th March, so sign up here now! https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/helping-the-happy-ham-landers-1d7beb4d-64a9-44a0-aa59-fd0202f18f35