Archives for December 2017

Christmas (non) Work Party Report – 14th December 2017

16th December 2017 By John Roper Leave a Comment

Christmas Gathering 14th December 2017

The weather was kind to the Friends who braved the ice and cold to celebrate the successes of the second year of restoration.

**Photo taken on 10th December 2017 – when we decided that to be safe we would meet on the 14th – to socialise but not to work.**

But in fact most of the snow had melted away with the overnight rains and it was a sunny and clear day, but still quite cold. We discovered when we left that the Fernery does provide a considerable degree of shelter from the cold wind.

We all enjoyed the nibbles that people had brought with them to share: stollen cake, mince pies, sausage rolls, wonderful other seasonal biscuits and cakes, plus some flan and bits and pieces left over from the the previous night’s Welwyn Natural History Society Christmas Meeting! (Thank you WNHS). All washed down with very hot Mulled Wine, coffee and tea. But unlike our Friends from Mardley Heath (who celebrate next Sunday 17th December), we lacked the initiative to light a bonfire to warm ourselves up.

We welcomed two visitors from the Sherrardspark Woodwardens, Ann and Becca, who were presented with FOD hi viz tabbards ready to be used on their return visit(s). We all enjoyed socialising, and Sue brought her divining rods with her. Several of us had never used them before, let alone seen them in action, and we took it in turns to see what mysteries we might find beneath our feet.

As amateur dowsers, we have to report that none of us solved the Victorian puzzle of how water was brought to the site and then pumped around, but we had a sufficient number of odd readings to silence the doubters. The rods did indeed ‘cross’ when held in line with the known position of the water pipe running from the Dropping Well, towards the ‘well’ in the centre of the dell. And we also got many very positive readings in the area of the brick foundations walls that Harry and David were excavating last month at the North end of the site. The photos show Becca first of all getting instructions in the use of the rods by Sue, before getting her wires crossed (literally) where Harry and David had been digging around.

Dowsing works on the principal that every living thing has an energetic field. When we think of using divining rods, for most people the ancient act of divining for water with hazel twigs comes to mind. Divining rods can be used for divining activities such as locating an underground stream or well, the outside edge of someone’s aura or locating ley-lines. (Ed. Look it up – I did!). It is a known fact that for some the rods will draw outwards into alignment with the stream or field while others may find the rods cross at these points. (Holistic Shop.co.uk)

We rewarded our efforts with a little more mulled wine before concluding that there really are undiscovered mysteries at the Fernery, but that we surely need a proper geo-phys survey before we can convince the BBC and others to come visiting with their programme makers!

Programme for 2018

Work Party Meetings are listed under the Calendar tab above; as a Rule the work parties meet on the third Thursday each month, and our new Gardening Group, as it builds up, will meet on the First Saturday each month.

We should make it clear that on some of the Work Party dates we might be working on the Park Field of the Nature Reserve rather than in the Fernery itself – but this will depend on the number of volunteers who attend, and the priority of tasks that we face. We would like to envisage a core Gardening Team that will always work in the Fernery developing and maintaining the Garden there, with a core team of others who will either be further excavating the Fernery or scrub bashing on the Nature Reserve. That will be our Resolution for 2018.

The Fernery Gardening Group

This has been a poor time of the year to hope to get this Group underway – our first official meeting in November was rained off, but Lyndsay turned up on Saturday 2nd December. After bulb planting, with others from the Danesbury Residents Association, at the top end of North Ride, we had to settle for a ‘Tour’ of the site and a review of our plans as we truly needed more people to make any work worthwhile.

We are waiting for the Borough Council to confirm the Planting List that Sue, Andrew and I agreed with Ann MacDonald and Chris James at our Campus East Garden Meeting on 9th November. Until we have that List to present to a Garden Designer, we cannot plan how to lay the Garden out. We have to have an agreed Garden Design by April 2018 when the Borough Council have assured us that we will take delivery of some 600 (perimeter) trees and plants.

Somehow we have to be ready.

Seasons Greetings

We end the year wishing you and your families a Happy Christmas and New Year.

What more appropriate way to say that than by copying the ‘Danesbury Fernery Christmas Card’ that Lucy Alexander produced and published on the FaceBook Page @danesburyfernery.

British Pteridological Society (BPS) Membership Confirmed

6th December 2017 By John Roper Leave a Comment

Treasurer Andrew has succeeded in arranging a group membership for “The Danesbury Fernery Volunteer Group“

The BPS are very interested in our Project and Andrew has already had contact from Dr Alison Evans, BPS Membership Secretary, and Dr Peter Blake acting Representative for the East Anglia section.

As East Anglia Area representative, Peter Blake (from Norwich) hopes to visit us in person at our work party of 15th March 2018.

Peter is also circulating all east Anglia members with details about our activities and our social media contacts, and we might therefore expect visits by local members of the society. Such contact would give us hands-on guidance on growing ferns. Peter is suggesting that if any BPS member has spare ferns, then we would be pleased to have them. (Many BPS members grow their ferns from spores that take two to three years to become a sustainable plant).

Peter Blake also recommends that the Friends of Danesbury Local Nature Reserve (FOD) visit the BPS website for details of regional events that are currently at the planning stage. To access the BPS Members’ area which contains the plant exchange scheme details, you will need to note the user-name and password : BPSMember (case-sensitive) – the same for both boxes.

Out of interest, BPS Secretary Alison has commented to Andrew on one of the posts from our own website, How to Grow Specimen Ferns (principally the extract from Robinsons’s book documenting Anthony Parson’s systematic approach). She endorses the need to remove any chalk from the planting beds, and to try to plant domestic cultivars as ‘they are more resistant to rabbit and deer taste’.

High Sheriff’s Award 2018 – FOD fail to be short listed

2nd December 2017 By John Roper Leave a Comment

We have received notice from the Hertfordshire Community Foundation that unfortunately

the Friends of Danesbury LNR have not been short-listed by the High Sheriff’s Panel for the 2018 Award.

We are advised that a large number of nominations are received from a wide range of fantastic organisations in the county, and that it is always a difficult job to narrow them down to the final few.

But we are thanked for all our work and we have the Panel’s best wishes for our future projects.