29 June 2012 – Midweek Group at Kiltearn
So yes, we’re still tackling the Himalayan Balsam up here at TCV Inverness. It’s never-ending, but at least yesterday and today saw us move to new sites! After 2-3 weeks in a set of barley fields a move was just what was needed to (re)motivate everyone! Yesterday we successfully cleared the balsam from a site in Evanton, along the River Sgitheach. It proved to be an adventurous day, climbing over/under fallen trees, debates over how deep water was, people getting wet not believing others re how deep the water was!, vertical banks to climb and numerous other obstacles – not forgetting the rain!
Today we moved to the nearby Kiltearn to continue our balsam adventures and this site has proved to be popular with our vols and VOs alike.
View at Kiltearn, looking west(ish)
The Himalayan Balsam itself is solid, and varying greatly in growth – baby ones to full grown giants!
Lots of Balsam! – Aaron & Mark getting stuck in
Matt & Linda working hard – look at that pile!
The excitement of the day was finding one of these elusive giant Himalayan Balsams! Often talked about by long term volunteers, most of us had yet to see such a beast. But today was the day…
The giant with (Left) volunteer Mark and (right) VO Matt
Much to our horror it is in flower, which means reseeding! So we’ll be working hard to get rid of any balsam in this stage asap. The flower itself is really pretty, and you can sort of see why it’s nicknamed policeman’s helmet..
.. although gnomes hatstand is much better! As always more photos can be found on our flickr page.