Today, April 17th, a good turnout of about 33 people including 11 children joined the wildflower planting party at Sutton Common. The children were particularly the stars of the event ranging from the age of 2 to 10 and showing keen interest in weeding the hardy creeping bent out. They found no difficulty in understanding how increasing diversity of plants enhances the diversity of insects and birds, really bright minds.
One particular child had dragged his mum along to see the horses, but when he met the team and learned about the importance of plant diversity and our struggles with our soil type and the infamous creeping bent, he rolled his sleeves up to dig for well over an hour and forgot all about the horses! Had to remind him he could go and see the horses, but he didn’t seem as excited about them as he was about his digging and planting. A two-year-old named Noah, living up to his name, eagerly helped his dad plant a meadowsweet specimen, sow seed, and water. Imagine what he’ll do when he is 20! The representative of Sutton Common park, Ray Leyden, also paid us a visit to support us and was overwhelmed by the grace and beauty of Murdoch and Joey, the shire horses. We really thank the People’s Postcode Lottery grant award for helping fund the horse power and the wildflowers for this project.
The weather could not have been better as we had plenty of sunshine to enjoy ourselves. This also meant that we didn’t have to be digging mud and that really helped as it is very hard do any weeding in wet clay. The team did well in coordinating with Tom, the horse driver from operation Centaur, the specifics of rolling and harrowing the ground on site as well facilitating seeds and plants just at the right time. Due to a plant delivery delay, most of the wildflowers will actually be planted later on. Nonetheless, we are grateful to all that came to help spot weed creeping bent, sow, water and plant the lovely meadowsweet wildflowers. SNCV volunteers in the team were great in building rapport with the event-volunteers and share about the work we do in Sutton. Hip hip hooray everybody!
