A new Chair, a reinvigorated committee with new plans and …
noted local naturalist Joe Beale on his recent survey of the birds and bugs of Mycenae Gardens

The arrival of new members to the committee has given the group new energy and a new Chair, Stewart Williams, as well as many ideas for the future, to restore and improve the Gardens for the local community and for wildlife.  Come and hear about those plans, and to hear from Joe Beale about the survey he carried out in May this year, a survey commissioned to help the group and the council make plans that would encourage wildlife as well as improve the Gardens for users.

Come and join us on Monday 30 October 2023 6:45 for 7pm
in the Waldorf (Steiner) School Hall

We are very happy to announce

that Joe Beale’s ecologist survey has been finalized and is now available to the public.

The pdf version is available for download here

The weather was kind to us …

and we had a useful number of energetic volunteers from the Friends (and their families) and from the athletes of GoodGym (https://www.goodgym.org/reports/weaving-our-magic)

Some much-needed pruning produced cuttings that were used to reinforce the dead hedging.

Three new birdboxes were put up in the wildlife area

Meanwhile a different team (fortified with cupcakes and flapjacks) restored one of the willow barriers. 

A few bulbs still survive within this bed, but we plan to plant more later, if the barrier lasts longer than the last ones …

Saturday 11 March 10:30am to 1pm

Please come and help set up the gardens for the season!  We shall be gathering on Saturday 11 March  to carry out some pruning, repair of the dead hedging, and (if we can get hold of the materials) repair of the willow barriers around two of the shrub beds.  

Come to help or come to chat.  Bring gloves, plus secateurs and/or loppers (if you have them).  Biscuits provided. 

I have failed to provide an update to the rather gloomy post of 23 September last. 

After various twists the AGM was eventually held on 18 October 2022.  A number of members were elected to the committee which now comprises:

Bruce Atherton (Liaison)

Mark Barnes (Chair)

Fiona Machen (Joint Secretary)

Anne Robbins 

Vera Shuvueva-Becar

Virginia Williams (Treasurer)

Stewart Williams (Joint Secretary)

Mark Johnson-Brown (nominated by Mycenae House)

Rita Sesay (nominated by The Greenwich Steiner School)

The new members bring a welcome and much needed portfolio of new skills and ideas. 

One of those ideas was to conduct a survey of members and other users of the gardens, to ascertain more accurately what the local community needs from the gardens, and how best it can be delivered.  That questionnaire is available at https://bit.ly/fomg-q1. Paper copies will also be available in Mycenae House. Please fill it in, and let us hear your views and ideas. 

Meanwhile, we have also been busy with more hands-on matters.  After a pruning day in October, and some woodchip spreading in November, we have a ‘winter action day’ on Saturday 11 March 10:30am – 1pm, when we hope to tidy up, carry out some pruning, repair the dead hedging and possibly reconstruct the willow barriers (if we can source the materials).  Please come along, to help or just to chat.   Many hands make light work – and a party …

Mark Barnes

So did you spot the Black Walnut?

… or the Weeping Pear?

Friday 6 May was a fine day for a Tree Party.  We were celebrating the variety of trees in what I shall continue to call the Mycenae Arboretum.  Rich Sylvester (@richstories) was there to lead the festivities, and soon had a tribe of small children following him, many of whom turned out to be quite knowledgeable young dendrophiles.   

Thirty five different species of tree have been labelled (with much appreciated advice and help from Greenwich Tree Officers).  One or two trees are still to be labelled.  But if you spot a species that you think should be labelled, please let us know.   

Come to our Tree Party – Friday 6 May 3:45pm

There are at least 36 different species of tree in Mycenae Gardens.  How many have you noticed?   

Most of us could identify the London Planes, but could you spot the Black Walnut or the Weeping Pear? 

The Friends of Mycenae Gardens have enlisted the expertise of Greenwich Tree Officers to identify the trees, and will be labelling one of each species during the day  on Friday 6 May, with a celebration party after school hours from 3:45 to about 5:30pm.  Mycenae House café will be open, and the festivities will be led by Rich Sylvester, our local ‘Guide to Green Spaces and Old Places’, who will weave his tales around the trees in the Gardens, and offer younger participants a chance to get creative with clay, sticks and seeds. 

Come and meet the trees  (and bring friends and neighbours) for our Tree Party – Friday 6 May 3:45pm

Episode 277: The shrub beds that punctuate the eastern and northern (lower) edges of the lawns are inevitably attractive play areas for children, but the result is that the smaller shrubs and bulbs are trampled and the larger ones progressively isolated and reduced. They will vanish altogether unless they are protected.

We could not, and would not wish to, erect the sort of fences that would prevent incursion onto the shrub beds. Instead, we erect modest barriers that we hope will discourage such incursions, by acting as a sign that these areas are different and separate from the areas of more general access.

We have previously tried rope and post barriers that were regularly cut and removed. A little over two years ago, we tried replacing these with some very attractive willow-weaves donated and built by local ‘willow wizard’, Richard Vidal. These were stripped bare during the pandemic, a period when the gardens were used (rather than visited) even more than normal, by many less sensitive to the need to preserve them.

The latest idea is similar, but to use rather more robust materials to form fences that can be repaired if necessary. In mid-December a few of us joined the Forest Club event, led by Stephen Stockbridge, that is regularly held in Lesnes Abbey Woods (https://www.creativenature.info/workshops/p/volunteer-days-at-lesnes-abbey-woods). We were there to collect materials for a trial fence. This was an entertaining morning, partly because we spent as much time establishing the ‘camp’, making a fire and then the tea, as in collecting the needed hazel posts and whips. However, when we came to make the fence, we realised we needed to collect much more material – and more volunteers to help us do it.

On 15 Jan 2022, rather more of us gathered in the gardens to learn from Stephen how to turn these materials into an experimental fence.

The object of the experiment was (a) to see whether the result would be robust and attractive enough for the gardens, and (b) to get some idea of the time, work and materials required.

As to (b), we found it took a fair amount of time and work (although it may become swifter and easier if we become more practised at it), and a LOT of materials. The materials we had collected were barely enough to start. Fortunately, Stephen had brought some more. It was nearly enough to complete a fence around just one of the shrub beds. The window for collecting and using the coppiced wood that we used is fairly narrow: about three months in winter. If we decide to continue this around the other shrub beds it will take two or three years to complete.

As to (a), we were pleased with the look of the fence, but we look forward to hearing other reactions (email us at friendsofmycenaegardens@gmail.com). Whether it is robust enough to survive predation remains to be seen. One advantage of this system is that it should be possible to repair moderate damage as it arises, by using other cuttings.