October, 2008
Ferocious nettles are beginning to sag
Nettles are on the wane now in Lime Tree Avenue. They were ferocious during the summer months, vast swathes of them, taller than a person and packing a powerful sting if you tried to reach that colourful piece of rubbish nestling within.
Now though they are thinning out, their strength fading, but still pretty lethal as they flop onto the path ready to leave their mark on any bare legs that come within reach.
There’s still plenty of litter to pick, paper bags, sweet wrappers, empty drinks cans and even big plastic bottles. There are cigarette ends dropped in favoured smoking spots and on windy days even more spent matches.
At the Downsview Crescent end of the avenue where poplar tree stumps and rubbish were cleared recently in preparation for replanting with lime saplings a huge amount of litter was unearthed but the site is now looking much better.
The whole avenue should benefit from the attention it will receive on a task day on Saturday, November 29, when volunteers bring secateurs and loppers to help clear strength-sapping epicormic growth, or suckers, from the base of trees.
Your help would be much appreciated so please Contact Us if you can come along.
Blackberries are out and a plant that looks like empty can Blackberries are out in lime Tree Avenue at the moment. A few mushrooms – or are they toadstools – remain.
There’s an orange plant too which catches me out regularly. I keep mistaking it for empty drinks cans.
There are plenty of those in the avenue and plastic bottles and crisp packets and sweet wrappers.
There are other things too which crop up with monotonous regularity – like the empty Mayfair cigarette packets and the skinny white remains of roll ups.
I’m proficient now with one of the litter picking sticks donated, along with fluorescent jackets, to Lime Aid by the Brighter Uckfield Campaign.
There are regular challenges requiring dexterity, bottle tops are a doddle, pieces of glass more difficult but these days I never resort to stooping and using my fingers.
The litter-picking is a peaceful task and can’t be rushed. I like to start at the bottom of the avenue and work my way up. My treat is to walk back down again and enjoy the scenery and the air.
‘Smell the air,’ a tree surgeon once said. ‘It’s good stuff. That’s because of the oxygen being released by the trees.’