If you use your local Co-op and have a Co-op Members Card, please go online and select Fleet Pond Society as your chosen charity.
The Society will then earn 1% of the money you spend on Co-op products. It all helps us to conserve this beautiful community asset.
Our recent Sunday volunteer work party spent several hours clearing the banks of the Coldstream Marsh diversion channel. The aim is to increase light to the aquatic flora and provide basking banks for reptiles while retaining adjacent refuge vegetation.
When you cut down leaf trees, they quickly start to sprout again. An Ecoplug provides an effective way to deal with this. By inserting the plug into a stump, you can kill the tree and stop regrowth.
Ecoplugs reduce the use of chemicals by 90% compared to traditional methods of treating felled leaf trees.
Here the team are using them to control tree growth on one of the islands. They’re applying Ecoplugs to fresh wood immediately after felling. The plan is to prevent regrowth and allow reeds to become established on the island.
This week the team has been cutting back scrub and bramble along the Gelvert Stream as it runs into Sandy Bay. The left bank has been left with cover.
Controlling scrub in this area will allow different types of plants to grow, and by letting light on the water, we can try and increase the diversity of aquatic plants in the stream.
Come Spring, we will see plenty of new growth.
