Our Projects
Most of our work is focused on increasing biodiversity by creating habitats for wildlife. Read about all our ongoing projects here (apart from our major wetland project, which has its own page here)
Wildflower and hedgerows
One of our most important long-term projects in the park has been planting wildflower and hedgerows.
Cammo park has had lots of big trees and open fields of grass for a long time. This is because it was once a private estate, then a golf course, and then a farm with cattle.
This meant that there was almost no flower and fruit for insects and birds. So, the Friends set about bringing in native flowers and shrubs.
Long hedgerows were planted around all the field margins. These provided food and shelter for lots of animals.
Growing trees in a public park is not easy – voles, rabbits and deer eat the small trees and dogs pull off the protective tubes and break the stakes.
However, thanks to the hard work of the Friends and volunteers, we now have huge lines of hawthorn, willow and other native shrubs surrounding the open fields.
In the fields themselves we sowed seeds, planted plugs and cut and baled the grass to encourage flower and thin out the grasses.
A key plant is an annual called yellow rattle. This weakens the grasses and leaves room for other flowers. Cammo went from having almost no rattle to around two million plants in eight or nine years.
The fields that were once just two or three species of grass now have dozens of native flowering plants – orchids, tansy, meadow cranesbill and many others.
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The Friends have organised for five tree surgeons to bring woodchip, brash, and logs into the park. We use these to create habitat piles and to cover the muddy paths.
The piles of logs and branches provide perfect feeding and hibernating spots for frogs and toads, and great homes for native insects and wood mice. We also take in people's old Christmas trees - almost every pile of dead Christmas trees now has a robin or a wren associated with it.
