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HEATHER REGENERATION
EXTENDING HEATHLAND HABITAT ON THE COMMONS
Update for 2025: Work continues each year with the removal of birch saplings by our D of E volunteers (often with parental support in the pouring rain!), cutting bi-annually and the removal of bracken. Sadly, the bracken comes back but has again been cleared by Janet Hopkinson and a small team of helpers so that the heather will be at its finest this autumn. There is btacken coming through again this summer (not surprisingly) and a team is needed to help clear this. Please see the August newsletter.
Update 2021: Happily, the work done by last year’s DofEs and several adult volunteers on clearing the bracken, birch and gorse saplings from our heather beds is paying off and there are signs of new heather shoots emerging. I am sure that the volunteers will all be happy that their efforts were not in vain and that we will see an even more impressive show of heather later in the year. Meantime where the earth had been disturbed we had a fantastic show of foxgloves.
There are two areas on the Commons where there were small patches of elderly heather which are now being successfully regenerated. Part of the process to achieve this is by controlling other nearby vegetation to a low height and density to decrease the shade that they cast.
At the top of Horseblock lane the Hilltop Commons Conservation Group have worked hard to reduce competing gorse and cut it back to a few inches in height each year. The aim is to allow a mosaic of heathland plants to develop with none so dominant that the others suffer.
However gorse is also an integral part of heathland habitat and as such it too plays an important role on the Commons. It provides song perches and nectar to a wide range of birds and insects throughout the seasons and is a valuable member of the plant community which sustains our wildlife.
Therefore in other parts of the Commons the coppicing of gorse is arranged so that there are always some plants of different heights and stages in development. This means there are always some plants in a given area providing different resources required by different types of wildlife. Left to its own devices gorse would become long and leggy and degenerate and die.
Background
Work was originally started in 2001, and again in 2003, to re-establish two heather patches on the commons, one either side of Horseblock Lane. There is always a danger of the plants being swamped by a combination of gorse, brambles, birch and bracken, and various volunteer groups have kept these in check ever since. The heather is also cut (recently by James) at least once every two years, in order to keep it in good health and encourage flowering. Other heathland species are thriving in these areas, such as wavy hairgrass and sheep’s sorrel which need open ground to thrive, along with heath bedstraw all of which only grow on acid soil.
In 2019, James scraped some of the more overgrown areas back to the subsoil in order to assist natural germination, and in addition, we harvested seed in the winters of 2019 and 2020, which was then scattered on the bare ground. The beds are slowly regenerating and much work continues to be done each year to keep them clear of intruding gorse and birch saplings and control the bracken,
Germination of heather can take up to 2 years and the plants take a long time to become established. However, there are now good numbers of new, tiny heather plants starting to come through. Those on the Hawridge patch are generally larger than those on the Cholesbury patch. During the last year or so, more volunteer work has helped to clear gorse and bracken where they were threatening to invade the established heather plants. Thanks are due to several D of E students and their families, as well as the ‘Get Out There’ team from Hammersmith and other local volunteers. Some solid areas of gorse have been left to grow as part of the heathland species mix.
Opening up the new areas allowed many other plants to colonise, including some welcome patches of foxgloves. However, the bracken and gorse requires constant removal. We need to control these invasive species as follows:
1. Established gorse
Where gorse is within the heather areas, it is cut at the same time as the heather in the spring., presently on a bi-annual basis. The solid gorse areas need little maintenance.
2. Gorse seedlings
We rely on DofE volunteers to hand-weed the gorse plants before they grow much bigger, at which point it becomes a major operation to remove them. After rain is a good time to do it as the ground is softer and the roots looser.
3. Bracken
Ideally bracken stems should be cut or pulled when two fronds have opened. If it is not possible to do it at that time, any time after that, e.g. when the gorse is being weeded, will help to weaken the rhizomes for the future.
Overall, we are making slow but continuous progress in re-establishing heathland on the Commons. We intend to maintain it as a healthy and attractive feature.