Over the last few months the Hyndburn’s Woodlands Volunteers have been hard at work at Whinney Hill carrying out 8 Himalayan Balsam bashing sessions.
Whinney Hill is currently infested with Himalayan Balsam, a non-native annual plant brought over to the UK during the Victorian period. The plant occupies an extremely large amount of the woodland, taking away space where native plants could grow, which would provide much more value for biodiversity.
We have focused much of our effort on a patch where the upper canopy cover (the very tops of the largest trees) is much sparser. The sparse canopy allows much more light through which seems to promote growth of Himalayan Balsam. This, coupled with the fact that Balsam seeds can stay in the ground for 2 years and can sprout at different times, has meant that despite clearing large swathes, new growth would re-emerge. As such, we have spent most of the 8 sessions re-clearing the same patch over and over, we are now happy to say that this patch is clear of Balsam. We have also cleared around the perimeter of the patch so that when the rest of the Balsam flowers and sets seed it hopefully won’t spread back into the treated patch.
We have noticed that Balsam cleared in the more shaded areas is showing a lot less re-emergence. Our plan currently is use our few remaining sessions, including an upcoming large scale ‘Big Balsam Bash’, to clear as much as possible inside in the shaded areas of the wood.
We would like to thank our wonderful volunteers who have committed many an hour these last few months to help us keep Hyndburn’s Woodlands native.
As always, thank you to our funders at Lancashire County Council, Hyndburn Borough Council, and the Windfall Fund for making it all possible.
