Out with the old, in with the new.

New sheep in the meadows.

‘Time flies when you’re having fun’ is one of our favourite sayings. It’s just so true…. Loads of fun we had the last couple of weeks. Fun with weeds growing above our heads -we’re not complaining-. Fun with overflowing ponds and (a little less) fun with tidying up some badly damaged trees.

But most fun we had with our side-project, financed by The Freshwater foundation; the replacement of the sheep in the meadows. The sheep are made by Mick Burns, who is also the creator of the old sheep . The bodies of the sheep are sculpted from rot resistant, Monterey Cypress wood and their legs are solid oak. With help of our amazing Ealing Rangers Jon and James, we managed to replace the rather tired pair with some lovely new sheep. (And there’s even a little addition to the group.)

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_{Pictures: Dagmar Gauweiler / James Morton}

Mistletoe in May

Last week some of us took part in a small side project. We helped Ealing rangers spreading Mistletoe berries, to support Ealing’s biodiversity action plan. We have also started our tree tending evenings to keep up with the -now very fast growing- weeds and grasses.

Mistletoe (Viscum album) is a very scarce plant in Ealing and a priority species under the borough’s biodiversity action plan. It has a hemiparasitic life cycle, growing on trees from which it extracts water. In nature the seeds are spread by birds, notably Mistle Thrush. Last week we gave Ealing park rangers and nature a helping hand by spreading Mistletoe seed onto apple trees, a favoured host species.

The seeds are surrounded by a thick mucilaginous slime that literally glues them to the bark. In time we hope they will germinate and grow into mature plants which can then seed and spread naturally. We don’t know exactly why Mistletoe was almost lost to Ealing, but we aim to work to bring about the return of unique and remarkable species.

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If the seeds germinate and grow into new plants, we will record them on this map (Mistletoe in Ealing)

In addition to the Mistletoe project we have started to document the old fruit trees in the area covered by our trail. Map (Veteran fruit trees in Ealing) Some of the old trees are already looked after by us. We take away dead and damaged wood and protect them against rabbit damage if we can.

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Not all old trees are easily accessible, but some are part of our existing orchards and you can take some fruit from them if you wish. In the coming months we will add information about the old trees to the map, e.g. if the fruit is for cooking or can be eaten raw (dessert).

And last but not least……

We are very happy to have welcomed new volunteers in the last couple of weeks. If you want to help us keeping our orchards healthy, you’re welcome to join us anytime. Please register as a volunteer to get regular updates of when and where we work.

New additions to the trail…

The last couple of weeks have been busy for us as volunteers. We transformed a small piece of land along the canal into an orchard. Planted lots of whips and made a start with the planting of native black poplars.

Bernd’s Orchard

Along the canal, on the East-side of St Margaret’s field, we created a new, small orchard. With the help of one of the Ealing park rangers, we planted 5 trees -one Mulberry and 4 varieties of apple-. This orchard is very special to us, as we planted it to commemorate one of our founding members; Bernd Gauweiler.

Whips

For the last two years, we have been able to apply for free whips from The conservation volunteers . The whips received are a variety of native, fruit bearing, hedge whips, like dog-rose (rosa canina), blackthorn (prunus Spinoza) and hawthorn (crataegus) . This year we used most of the whips to fill up gaps in existing hedges in St. Margaret’s, The Piggeries and in Blackberry Corner.

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Black poplar and buckthorn whips.

Special mention is deserved for a couple of other whips we planted along the orchard trail. First special mention is for the 4 black-poplars we planted. This tree is native to north-west Europe and a declining species in the UK. According to the Forestry Commission, black poplar is the most endangered native timber tree in Britain. It is the food plant for the caterpillars of many moths, including the hornet, wood leopard, poplar hawk and figure of eight. The catkins provide an early source of pollen and nectar for bees and other insects, and the seeds are eaten by birds. ‘Our’ whips have been propagated from cuttings from a poplar on Horsenden Hill. One of our volunteers has kindly cared for them for a year and a half. We will plant some more later in the year.

Second special mention is for some buckthorn whips that were gifted to us. Purging buckthorn is the main food plant of the brimstone butterfly, whose caterpillars eat the leaves. Its flowers provide a source of pollen and nectar for bees and other insects, while its dense growth makes it a valuable nesting site for birds. By adding these plants to our orchards we are hoping to give the brimstones, that are visiting from the Chilterns, a place to stay and breed.

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Orchard Care Update

As you will know or have guessed, we cancelled all group activities at the beginning of lock-down to help keep everybody safe.

Individuals or volunteers sharing a household and small groups, subject to the more recently evolving rules and guidelines, kept up the good work: pruning trees, picking litter, controlling weeds and caring for orchards and meadows in many other ways. Over 100 work hours were volunteered since March 23rd, covering all 11 locations along the orchard trail.

Our huge THANK YOU to everyone who has helped so far.

We are now planning safe activities for the near future, hoping to engage with new volunteers and reconnect with old friends.

Please look out for related news online at this web site, our Facebook or Twitter, or through the volunteer email system.

Happy Easter

We wish you a very Happy Easter and, most importantly in this crazy spring, we wish you a very Healthy Easter.

May you stay safe and sane or, if the bug has gotten to you yet, may you recover soon and fully! Our heartfelt best wishes are with everyone, anywhere.

May you find time and sufficient isolation to walk along the Orchard Trail as part of your daily exercise regime! The trees are in full bloom and everything is lush and vibrant with fresh greens; it is nature at its best.

Stay safe, stay healthy, stay sane.

Progress Report

This is an excellent time to rummage around the cupboard, get the old shoebox of photos and contemplate just how far Osterley Lock Orchard has come in just five years, but with the help of many, many, volunteer hours.

Our work hour statistics don’t reach all the way back to the beginnings, but an estimated 500 volunteer hours were spend at Osterley Lock Orchard since the start, not counting planning, preparation or taking of post-activity refreshments.

Everything begun with a site inspection June 13th, 2015. The site was completely overgrown except for a small picnic spot covered in litter, broken picnic table and remains of BBQ fires.

A joint effort of Canal and Rivers Trust volunteers and the park rangers provided the initial clearing October 15th, 2015.

We planted the front orchard January 30th, 2016.

Clearing of the back part begun December 17th, 2016, on a rather damp day, alongside the planting of 1000 native flower bulbs. Site care and maintenance has been an ongoing effort ever since. (Event invitation, more photos)

February 4th, 2017, brought the addition of 17 fruit trees to the rear of the orchard (event invitation, more photos), quickly followed by the installation of bird and bat boxes.

Osterley Lock Orchard now has 29 fruit trees, second only to Blackberry Corner Orchard with a collection of 44 fruit trees across the field. We give it ongoing care and maintenance with many Tuesday evenings and quite a few Saturday activities to help establish and maintain a clean, healthy and bio-diverse habitat and orchard.

Many small events followed, trying to keep Nettles and Burdock at bay, look after the fruit trees and keep the paths across the site clear and usable.

The most recent event at this time of writing was the spring clean at March 14th, 2020. A super volunteer turnout, assisted by the park rangers and their big boy toys. We coppiced and cleared to bring more light, airflow and clear lines of sight to improve the orchard site for plants, wildlife and humans alike.

(See the event invitation, report with photos).

Our heartfelt and warm Thank you! to everyone who helped with this project so far. We look forward to continued events in this and other parts of the orchard trail once the current exceptional conditions caused by the Coronavirus pandemic are a thing of the past.

Orchard Lock Orchard Management

Thank you all for lending us a hand with last week’s Osterley Lock Orchard spring clean! We were very happy to see an excellent turnout of volunteer, even including assistance spontaneously given after learning about the project. Between many hands and with the help of the park rangers, we accomplished quite a lot in little time:

We coppiced overgrown hawthorn trees (remnants of a former hedge) to bring light and a clear lines-of -sight to the orchard.

We recyled the branches to make enough woodchip to mulch the fruit trees, and stacked the rest into a ‘dead hedge’ to create nesting habitat for hedgehogs, small mammals and birds.

Thanks to great teamwork from local volunteers backed up with some ranger technical support we’ve significantly improved the orchard for fruit trees, visitors and wildlife in one go.

The First Cut

The first cut is the deepest (baby I know). We hope that it will also be effective. Our heartfelt thanks to everyone who came to help make light work of the Blackberry Corner Orchard winter pruning. We have now also cut the emerging Hemlock to give room for Cowslip, Deadnettle, thistle and plain grass.

Thank you all!

We Have Taken Off!

Our warmest thanks got to everyone who came to last week’s hedge planting event. 16 new and old volunteers made light work of 150 mixed variety hedge whips and 30 soft fruit plants to fill in the hedges at the St Margaret’s and Piggeries orchards, and to create a new wind shielding hedge in the Blackberry Orchard.

More rubble and other scrap was also removed and recycled where possible.

A perfect start into the new year indeed!

We have now set the tasks for our monthly Saturday Orchard Love events for February to May and tentatively set the re-start of the popular weekly Tree Tending Tuesday for light orchard and meadow maintenance to Tuesday, 7th April.

The full list of tasks and dates is available on our status and schedule page. Please join our volunteer email notification system for up-to-date information about all those events.

Have a Fruity Christmas

We wish you all a very happy, healthy, merry and fruity Christmas, whichever you faith!

(And yes, no faith counts as one!)

We are winding down towards Christmas and speeding-up with all those Christmas preparations at the same time, just as much as you are! We’ll go and take a break from Ye Olde Interweb for a few weeks.

Dates to look forward too:

Friday December 20th from 19:30
Members’ Christmas Party – check member and volunteer email for detail!

Wednesday December 25th, all-day event
Christmas. Celebrate as you like, but celebrate.

Saturday January 11th, 2020, from 11:00 o’clock
Get back together for the winter pruning and, undoubtedly, a pint.