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BARN HILL CONSERVATION GROUP
Registered Charity No. 1085476
 
‘Keeping in Touch’
Issue 49 – December 2010  

Roe Green Walled Garden 
BHCG were one of the 25 groups in London to be awarded a ‘Britain in Bloom’ certificate by the Royal Horticultural Society for our garden at Roe Green.

We were judged in July and gained an impressive 81% of available points. Judging was for community work, environmental responsibility and gardening.There were various categories for the award, and we gained 2nd from top – THRIVING. 

The certificate was presented to us by Richard Barnes, deputy Mayor of London, on a beautiful October morning on 9th floor of City Hall – which gave us the bonus of beautiful views of London. 

Work has continued on maintenance activities in the Garden. In spite of the bad weather and below zero temperatures we have kept the Garden open on every occasion at least until early afternoon.  The photograph below of one of our volunteers says it all. 

Kim                         

Sewa at Fryent Country Park
On 21 November we had the good fortune to have a party of volunteers at Fryent Country Park from the Indian Community who were participating in National Sewa Day. The aim of National Sewa Day is to give people a chance to devote their spare time to give something back to the community. In our case the aim was to help the environment at the Park. 

In total we had over 40 Sewa volunteers and we had a grand bulb planting day. 12,000 daffodil bulbs and English native bluebells were planted by teams organised and led by our Group. The daffodils were planted on the mound along Fryent Way and the bluebells in the linear orchard. 

Next spring should be a blaze of colour as hopefully the bulbs will flower at the same time as the fruit trees blossom. 

We were pleased to welcome Mr Barry Gardiner MP who joined us for part of the morning. 

Kim   

Meadow report from Fryent Country Park
As part of our project work at Fryent Country Park we conduct annual hay meadow surveys, as the Park has a large number of different species of wild flowers and grasses.

This year species richness was the highest recorded since monitoring commenced in 1985. Factors which may have contributed to this increase include weather related effects and the re-starting of hay harvesting in 2008 (following several years during which the meadows were flail cut only) and aftermath harrowing in 2009.  

One of our species, the Great Burnet, is very rare in Middlesex. In order to consolidate our stock of Great Burnet we raised a number from local seed grown at the Roe Green Walled Garden nursery. These were planted within the Park last year and have already been seen to flower. 

The Soil Association Organic Standard certification was retained at the annual inspection.  Masons Field (the extension to the Country Park), the woodlands and their produce are now certified as organic. 

Bernard 

A Japanese MantisSeveral years ago a Japanese student, Setsuko,  joined our group. After she went back to Japan we have kept in touch with her and she still maintains a keen interest in our Group. We invited her to make a contribution to our Newsletter and subsequently we received this letter from her.

Hello. This is a letter from Japan.

On the summer solstice the temperature rises to around 30c and it becomes muggy. Young leaves of trees turn deep green.  Worms turn into bugs.

I care for the trees in my tiny garden, removing dead leaves, cutting withered branches to make airing space for plants.  

On 26th June, I found a baby mantis which I always look forward to seeing. 

The size is 1cm. 

For more than 15 years, I have enjoyed seeing mantis in my garden.

One day when insecticide was sprayed, I found a weakened mantis and it died in my hand. I felt so sad I decided not to use insecticide anymore.

The mantis is a "HARAHIRO" (mantis) in Japanese. It means "Big and wide body" .It grows to a size of 7cm -8cm by August. There is a distinctive white dot on the middle part of both wings.  They lay eggs in October and appear again the following year. 


Setsuko

Slideshow of Fryent Country Park on YouTube
A slideshow featuring shots of Fryent Country Park has been set up on YouTube by one of our supporters.

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We are open at Roe Green Walled Garden Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 10 am to 2pm. Sundays we are out in Fryent Country Park from 10 am to 12.30 pm carrying out conservation project work. Our new programme of projects will start again in January. Please see the web site programme for details or telephone the Garden. Feel free to join us in our conservation projects at Fryent Country Park. Training and Refreshments provided. A free Green Gym at your disposal!  We are now collecting old pottery garden pots and would appreciate any you no longer want. We also collect scrap metal such as copper, brass, aluminium, including aluminium cans

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY
Christmas Party                        
18 December at Roe Green Walled Garden from 12.00                            

General Committee Meeting                  
15 January 10.30 am at Roe Green Walled Garden 

Contact numbers
Garden 0208 206 0492 (answerphone if unable to answer)                                   
John (Chairman) 0208 205 2040 

Also at www.brent.gov.uk/parks