This is probably the worst of the jobs we undertake at Selwyn's Wood. It can be (a) wet, (b) hot and/or (c) boring. And it's all about those Bs, a combination of brambles, bracken and birch. We have to control them each year while they are small, which doesn't mean break off the birch, but pull it up by the roots, otherwise it will plague us again in twelve months time... We ought to do the same with the brambles, but time is often not on our side.

You see, we must not work close to bracken by about the middle of August when its spores ripen, because they are carcinogenic and the Trust, rightly, insists on no bracken pulling or cutting at that time.

We started weeding on May 27 which gave us some 10 to 11 weeks to work through - seeing that we work a half day a week, plus a Sunday half-day once a month. It's not long. And when it is too wet, or too hot we can lose much time, and then it is really boring. And probably boring for you who are having to read this!

However, the up-side of all this weeding is that our heather is part of the diversity of the total wildlife on the reserve.

On one of the few sunny days, I left a tool near an old stump and was delighted to find a lizard sunning itself on the wood. It was just a common lizard, but even a common anything always gives me a thrill. Another thrill is sniffing the honeyed scent of the heather in August as one rounds the footpath, followed by the sight of the mauve vista to a backdrop of the Low Weald and the Downs.

And if the sun is shining, bees, dragonflies, crickets, chiff-chaff and yellowhammers greet our ears as well. Heaven! That's just the adrenaline we volunteers need after days of grafting around the seasons.

Why not come and see the heather when we hold a Trust walk on the reserve on Sunday August 25 at 2:30.

John Hall © 2002