So Wenvoe has its 5 Community Green Flag awards with the addition this year of the Wild Orchard at St Lythans. This puts us ahead of many towns in Britain and even several cities. It is a great achievement and down to the efforts of a small handful of volunteers and our principal partners, the Reader family, the Community Council and the Vale of Glamorgan Council. Dare we go for 6 next year? The site is there but we will have a lot of work to get it ready to meet the exacting requirements of the Green Flag judges – see photo.
The dry weather has taken its toll of the trees and shrubs, although most of the fruit trees should survive provided we get some proper rain – soon! The Victoria Plum at the Community Orchard has succumbed and will be replaced in the Autumn. A new bare-rooted hedgerow at Goldsland has not survived and we are still waiting to plant out the wildflower plug plants (which have been potted on) when the ground softens up. The pond in the Community Orchard has never been so low and there is insufficient water in the adjacent stream to top it up.
With the focus on fungi, funded by Grow Wild, we have constructed and filled a series of raised beds at Goldsland and seeded some with mycelium which should sprout up into mushrooms in the Autumn. Some, we hope, will turn up naturally. Next month we shall be announcing the details of some competitions – photography, art and crafts with fungi as the theme.