Category: Nature

£1000 For Wildlife Activities

Wenvoe Wildlife Group

£1000 for wildlife activities

After another very successful Village  Show organised by Mike and Glenys  Tucker, we were delighted to receive just  under £1000 For Wildlife  Activities. Our thanks to all  who supported the occasion  and made individual  donations and, not least, Mila  and her Lavender sachets.  These events have enabled us  to repaint, refurbish and  rebuild noticeboards, clear  vegetation, buy tools and  create the school Wildlife  patch amongst many other  things. Without them we  would struggle to retain our 7  Green Flag Awards. Well  done all round!

Litter Picking

LITTER PICKING

Arlo and Will helping to keep the village tidy, by litter picking with their mum on Station Road. This isn’t a one off as they are often to be seen helping out. LITTER PICKING

Next litter pick;- week commencing 4th October with filled bags collected, along with black bags, on 11th October. Bags and pickers available . Please contact Russell Godfrey 07922 588924

 

The Leaves Are Putting On Their Autumn Hue

THE VILLAGE GARDENER

 

The Leaves Are Putting On Their Autumn Hue

 

It’s that time of year again, the leaves are putting on their Autumn hue, the children are going back to school and the garden centres are full of Christmas decorations. The garden puts on an autumn colour with late flowering perennials to the fore. New crocuses, daffodils and hyacinths should be planted now to get the best displays in Spring. Hold back on planting tulips until late October, or they may rot. Keep up with deadheading so we have colour until the first frosts. Divide herbaceous perennials to provide free plants; by doing this it will freshen up the older plants. Take cuttings of fuchsias and pelargoniums, they will take a bit of care over Winter, but they are free.

September is the time when most people will be repairing their lawn. To repair patches, mix some seed with compost and spread over areas that are bare. You will need to keep these patches damp and protected from birds. Annie Bennett will be reseeding her front lawn this month and will be on hand if you need any advice. Do not put a Spring or Summer lawn feed on the grass at this time of year as it’s nitrogen rich and will promote speedy growth which will weaken the grass before winter. We need to use a fertiliser high in potassium to help the root system.

On the allotments and veg gardens harvesting is still going on. Mike Marsh has cut all the tops off his main crop potatoes three weeks before digging them up to prevent any chance of blight affecting his crop. Clear any straw beneath your strawberries to stop pests overwintering in it. Don’t leave any rotting fruit on trees as this will spread disease. Cut back the fruited canes on the summer raspberries and leave the green new ones that will bear fruit next year.

The more ground you can keep covered the easier it will be for you and will stop soil erosion. Hardy peas and broad beans can be planted now along with shallots and onion sets. Any soil not covered can be planted up with a green manure crop or covered in weed fabric. This will save a lot of time come the Spring.

Please enter the Village Show with some of your produce (page 4&5). Take care and happy gardening.

THE VILLAGE GARDENER

 

The Arnolfini Wedding and Wenvoe

The Arnolfini Wedding and Wenvoe

What connects this famous painting – the Arnolfini Wedding by Jan van Eyck – with Wenvoe?

The garment the bride is wearing is edged with white fur but more on that later. Whilst we prefer our wildlife to be alive and flourishing these days, history confirms how animal fur from earliest times kept us warm and, later, fashionable. Peers of the realm often wore and can still be seen wearing at big state events a white fur with black spots. This is the fur of the Stoat recorded not so long ago near Burdons Farm. The white fur is its winter coat and is called Ermine. The stoat has a black tip to the tail, hence the black spots on ceremonial gowns. Sable is another fur from a weasel-like animal.

Less well-known is Miniver although you may have come across Mrs Miniver, a wartime film of 1942. Miniver is the white fur from the Red Squirrel, and it is this that provides the edging to the bride’s dress in the painting featured. The Grey Squirrel was only introduced to the UK in the nineteenth century, some say from 1876. Whilst there are no Red Squirrels anywhere near Wenvoe these days we do seem to have reasonable numbers of weasels as they have been appearing on our wildlife cameras.

 

An Average Age Of 82 Years

VILLAGE ENVIRONMENT GROUP

An Average Age Of 82 Years

With an average age of 82 years, this small band of brothers turn out each month to help keep Wenvoe a place to be proud of. This outing was aimed at keeping the village green area neat and tidy. They were so engrossed in their tasks, I had to call a halt to proceedings as it was time for their medication. The gentle soul in the picture was doing his best to get run over, by not facing the traffic and refusing to wear his hi vis jacket. ‘We didn’t have shiny coats in the war’, he said. The handle of the broom is 2ft 6ins, just to give you an idea how hard it would be for drivers to see him. We’ll meet again at Clos Llanfair to refresh the entrance on 9th September

 

Successful Orchard Pruning Course

Wenvoe Wildlife Group

Successful Orchard Pruning Course

A successful Orchard Pruning course was organised by the Vale of Glamorgan Council’s Nature Partnership group and held at the Community Orchard. Enabling this to happen was a great team effort. The Church Hall was hired for discussions and refreshments and Mike Tucker and members of the Environment Team turned out at the weekend to clear the footpath from Vennwood Close to the Playing Fields. The Council arranged for the Orchard to be cut and the Wildlife Group had the noticeboard repainted. Three members of the Wildlife Group attended the course which covered summer pruning techniques, tool usage and safety. We hope further courses will be organised in the future.

We were delighted to receive a donation of £200 from the new Care Home – Glenburnie Lodge. This followed a nomination by Mike and Glenys Tucker as their chosen local charity. We continue to receive occasional donations from local residents, and we would like to extend our thanks to them for their continued support.

The wildlife cameras are recording some fascinating wildlife including Tawny Owls, Weasels and Badgers

 

Successful Orchard Pruning

Wenvoe Wildlife Group

Successful Orchard Pruning

 

A successful Orchard Pruning course was organised by the Vale of Glamorgan Council’s Nature Partnership group and held at the Community Orchard. Enabling this to happen was a great team effort. The Church Hall was hired for discussions and refreshments and Mike Tucker and members of the Environment Team turned out at the weekend to clear the footpath from Vennwood Close to the Playing Fields. The Council arranged for the Orchard to be cut and the Wildlife Group had the noticeboard repainted. Three members of the Wildlife Group attended the course which covered summer pruning techniques, tool usage and safety. We hope further courses will be organised in the future.

We were delighted to receive a donation of £200 from the new Care Home – Glenburnie Lodge. This followed a nomination by Mike and Glenys Tucker as their chosen local charity. We continue to receive occasional donations from local residents, and we would like to extend our thanks to them for their continued support.

The wildlife cameras are recording some fascinating wildlife including Tawny Owls, Weasels and Badgers

Not Our Best Time

VILLAGE ENVIRONMENT GROUP

Not Our Best Time

Not our best time. The group had received some criticism of their work on social media last month. Only then to report that some of the team, who are members of the silver foxes had been eliminated from a Cary Grant look a like contest in Treherbert, because they didn’t meet any of the criteria. Hearing the anguish, Sian, a neighbour informed the sobbing old folk that a George Clooney resemblance gala was being held in Tenby during the Autumn, she assured them that a podium finish could be in their grasp.

Well, on hearing that good news the team worked like dervishes and cleared the flower bed in front of the Community Centre. While Gareth collected litter with a spring in his step. One absentee today was big John, who broke his foot while skating in preparation of playing Cary Grant in the bishop’s wife.

Our next meeting will be at Gareth sing songs house for tea and biscuits and to sweep his drive. Or tidy at the roundabout outside his property on the glorious twelfth

 

Grasshoppers And Crickets

Grasshoppers And Crickets

If you have replaced your lawn with artificial turf or keep it close cut through the summer you will probably not see any grasshoppers. However, let the grass grow, even in just a patch or two and you are likely to be rewarded with some. In the first year that the School let the grass in the wildlife patch grow tall the children found (and heard on hot days) several of them. There are a number of species of both grasshopper and cricket that pop up in sympathetically-managed gardens in Wenvoe and we have recorded Field, Meadow and Common Green Grasshoppers along with Speckled Bush Crickets, Dark Bush Crickets (see photo) and Short-winged Coneheads. Bush Crickets are different from ‘true’ Crickets which we are unlikely to see locally. Bush Crickets have long antennae whereas grasshoppers have relatively short ones.

Grasshoppers often appear in literature. One of Aesop’s fables was the Ant and The Grasshopper and Keats wrote a poem entitled On the Grasshopper and Cricket. Charles Dickens wrote The Cricket on the Hearth. And who can forget the dapper Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio. Against a backdrop of a decline in our flying insects by 60% over the last 20 years we cannot afford to ignore the plight of many species. A Government report states – ‘Invertebrates are integral to our natural environment, fundamental to the food chain and excellent indicators of the health of our natural habitats’.

Watering, Weeding And Dead Heading

THE VILLAGE GARDENER

Watering, Weeding And Dead Heading

Watering, weeding and dead heading are the jobs that need attending to every day at this time of year in an attempt to keep the garden looking it’s best for as long as possible. Some of the late flowering plants, such as dahlias and lilies, will need supporting in the wind and possible rain. Penstemons will need to have the spent flower heads removed to encourage the plant to give one more display before the end of the season. Wisteria whips should be cut back to keep this vigorous plant in check. Rhododendrons and camellias will need extra water at this time of year to encourage next years flower buds to develop. Take cuttings of pelargoniums and fuchsias for propagation. A little care will be needed but they will be free plants for next year. Late August into September is the best time to treat perennial weeds. They will take the weed killer back into the roots as they come to the end of their season.
Garden centres will have some good offers during August on perennial plants that have finished flowering this year. With a little care these will come back next year, bigger and with more blooms. You will know when the offers are on, as the Christmas stuff will be going on the shelves.
If you’re going on holiday in August be prepared for a very different looking allotment when you return, unless you arrange with neighbours to do some watering and to pick some of your produce. It’s better to share than waste. If you stop picking, some crops will go to seed or go past their best.
This time of year there will be a lot of green waste and not enough of the dry brown stuff to stop the compost from being sludgy. By shredding some paper and drying some of the green stuff under the sun you will help keep the compost heap working as it should. It’s a a good time to be turning the compost bins over, as the more heat you can get into it the better.
The village show on September 7th will hopefully be as successful as last year. This, of course, will depend on folk entering their wares and the volunteers.
Take care and happy gardening.

THE VILLAGE GARDENER

 

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