Woodland Conservation Group - Tuesday

16th December 2025

Shepherdleas Wood

Volunteering in Shepherdleas Wood on a Tuesday is always a pleasure – a beautiful environment, calm and peaceful (if you ignore the traffic on the A2!) and a small, friendly group.  It was a chilly day but luckily there was some respite from the rain. 

Seven volunteers attended and continued the restoration work in the area beside the bridge where bluebells and wood anemone are known to grow.  Some volunteers pulled up part of the huge mat of ivy covering the woodland floor in this area making sure, of course, that some was left for cover for woodland wildlife in the winter months.

Making gaps in the ivy.

Others cleared the holly we had left loose on the woodland floor and tackled a new holly stand which was growing tall and straggly immediately beneath a large, mature, native tree.  As one of shrubs making up the stand was a female, and so had some bright red berries, we didn’t want to remove it completely.  Not are the berries attractive, but more importantly they provide much-needed food for birds when there is little else to eat.  How do we deal with the holly in a situation like this where it is casting shadow on the woodland floor, preventing the growth of vegetation, and impacting the oak tree?  Well, that’s simple - we reduce the height of the holly to form a lower, denser shrub! 

As usual, all the holly waste was taken over to the new dead hedge alongside the path cutting through the wood.   

Topping up the dead hedging - this provides shelter for woodland animals.

The session was the last one in 2025, and we are proud of the progress we are making.  We hope you are too!

A well-earned break and a chat. Merry Christmas everyone and Happy New Year!