Latest News

Fallen Poplars

The image below shows the scene on Wednesday 23rd of April after Storm Franklin toppled two mature poplars within the Milesmere/Thorncliffe Wood end of the Bluebell Circuit. One crashed onto the largest of TMAEG’s spring flower glades containing recently planted English bluebells and wood anemones.

But, just when you need them…the TMAEG volunteers are on hand!

First things first, sizing up the problem? Then a risk assessment – it’s quite a job and we don’t want any volunteers hurt. Looking possible and so the mangled branches are removed first but can the team also tackle the removal of that section of the trunk which lies across the glade?

Brian saws up the trunk. A new blade for the bow saw made it a much easier task.

Simon and Brian sawing the trunk into smaller and of course, liftable sections.

The glade is now cleared and the picture shows the cut end of the poplar trunk. The woven fence can now be restored. There is a good chance that many of the bluebells will have survived.

Well done TMAEG volunteers and all done within three days of the fallen trees being found.

Two Mile Ash Open Gardens 2022

This is an invitation to consider offering your garden for Two Mile Ash Open Gardens 2022, which will take place over the weekend 11-12^th June, 1-5 pm.

This will be the 5^th Open Gardens and will also encompass our TMAEG projects, showcasing a rejuvenated Bee Garden and Fernery. Also, our newly-opened Bluebell Circuit, which offers new walking opportunities.

The OG2022 sub-group has already been offered several full and front gardens. These lie along the Fairways/Westcliffe/ Milesmere/Stonehill/ axis. We would welcome more in these areas.

From the visitors’ point of view, clusters are more attractive than an isolated garden at the end of a long trudge. If you’re considering opening your garden some way away from others, it would be useful to find a neighbour or two nearby! Get in touch with us, in any case.

Remember, this is not a competition. There is huge variety in Two Mile Ash and we’d welcome gardens that reflect this, quirky or immaculate.

It is amazing what people have achieved following their own particular vision – we know that two years of virtual lockdown have provided the opportunity for transforming a dull garden into a very special place. Maybe flowers have given way to fruit and vegetables? Perhaps your garden is now a magnet for wildlife?

For the visitor, this variety is the joy of Open Gardens.

Past Open Gardeners have enjoyed the event very much and have also appreciated the opportunity to run, if they choose, a small activity – teas, or a plant stall, perhaps – to raise funds for their own favourite charity. Around 100 visitors per garden can be expected.

Alternatively, if you want to help in another way, lending a hand staffing another garden, or distributing Yellow Passports, then please get in touch.

If you go to our website www.tmaeg.org and click on Open Gardens, you may find answers to any questions you may have.

Please reply to me on [email protected] or ring 01908 561365, ideally by Friday 11^th March. I look forward to hearing from you!

Pavla Gossop

Open Gardens 2022

Annual meeting goes virtual

Daffodils at Cornhill/Stonehill Junction

Among the activities affected by the cutbacks in local services has been the environmental management of our public areas. Those difficulties have been exacerbated this year by the onset of Covid 19 which has had massive implications for our public services generally. Throughout this pandemic period, the Two Mile Ash Environmental Group (TMAEG) has sought where it can to continue its activities, recognising the considerable benefits of its gardening and landscaping work to the well-being of the local community.

One of the activities that TMAEG hasn’t been able to continue with concerns indoor gatherings; that has meant that its annual Celebration and AGM, normally held each September, could not take place this year. So instead, the Group has opted for a Virtual Annual Meeting and a written Annual Report, charting how TMAEG has fared during its ninth year to October 1st 2020, the last half of which was affected by the virus. Thus, it has made use of email, the internet, and some physical deliveries to update its many members on the progress being made, as well as to seek their feedback.

This News Item concentrates on two of TMAEG’s inputs to the Virtual Annual Meeting; its core Annual Report on Sites and Events; and a commentary by TMAEG Chairman Stanley Cohen on how the work has been pursued through these adverse times.

You can access the Virtual Annual Report here:

Coton Manor Garden – TMAEG’s Summer Outing – 5th June

A highlight for TMAEG this summer was a trip to one of England’s loveliest gardens, Coton Manor near Althorp in Northamptonshire. This is a very special place, really a collection of gardens and landscapes, with something for everyone. And a learning experience for TMAEG into how to do things! A selection of photos follows; mostly taken by David Barratt, our former chairman. Thanks Dave!

The gardens were first laid out in the 1920s by the grandparents of the present owners

With its stone terraces, the 17th Century manor house provides a central focus for the gardens

Nine of us made the trip, sharing three cars.

The holly hedge border, seen from the terrace (Chris Gossop)

Another fine border, further down the slopes (Chris Gossop)

A woodland area with rhododendron at its best

The Old Orchards with their ‘water staircase’, and . . .

Beautiful blue perennials in one of the flower borders — Beautiful blue perennials in a flower border.

Everywhere, colour abounds

The unexpected – two colourful residents

‘Lord of all I survey’ – representation of a stag in the wildflower meadow

For more information, visit www.cotonmanor.co.uk

Highlights of 2019

By the end of this TMAEG year ending with the 8th Year Celebration & AGM on September 14th, we will have run some forty events – a mix of environmental schemes, visits, walks and socials. The need to safeguard and improve our environment is increasingly seen as vital to our planet’s future and to span all levels from the local – as here in Two Mile Ash – to the global. As a local environmental group, TMAEG seeks to do its bit both for the people who live, work and visit here and for nature and biodiversity. And in terms of the human species, we like to think that we are as much social as environmental as everything we do brings us together, providing opportunities for new friendships and contributing to our feelings of well-being.

Herewith, a small selection of the things we have been doing.

Summer planting at the Park Gateway

As part of a joint scheme with Hair Culture and the Dental Practice who own the large planters, TMAEG volunteers remove the winter pansies and daffodils and replace them with red geraniums and trailing lobelias. This happened in late May and will provide summer colour for this focal point of our village centre.

Maintenance of this big pedestrian area is a year-round task.

Earlier in the season, volunteers tamed a previously overgrown pyracantha bush.

They weeded the eye-catching Twin Gardens created by TMAEG in the spring of 2018,

and trimmed some of the Council’s shrubs which border the Twin Gardens at the entrance to the Local Park.

The result, a more attractive place for everyone.

Working with entry year children at Ashbrook School

Every year, about half way through the autumn term, TMAEG teams up with Ashbrook School to enable first year children to plant daffodil bulbs in prepared sites close to the school.

A view of the entrance to the Local Park in March 2019 – these are the newest of our Ashbrook daffodils, planted by children entering the school in the autumn of 2018.

Year by year, as the children plant more daffodils, and as the individual groups thicken out, the result becomes ever more striking.

Nature areas and spring flowers

Wood anemones in the Milesmere/Thorncliffe Woodland. These were planted some years back by TMAEG in a newly created glade and they are now coming into their own.

Native primroses have been planted in a second glade providing a fine spring display at the point where the woodland track joins the green ride running along the western edge of TMA.

A related species, the cowslip, can also be found here . . .

. . . as can the pretty flower, stitchwort.

Visits, Talks and Walks

The Year Eight Programme included two local walks led by Stan, three visits and our second Winter Social. The Local Heritage Walk in December reminded us that while Two Mile Ash is barely 40 years old, quite close by we have the remains of a Roman villa, a medieval priory and Georgian architecture. This walk was followed in the spring by another very enjoyable one covering the historic village of Loughton and the Teardrop Lakes.

The Winter Social at Holy Cross Church was attended by an audience of 25 members; our speakers were Kevin Slaymaker on local wildlife – and Chris Monk (TMAEG’s web master) on ‘IT Society and Local Memories’. A very thoughtful evening, giving rise to plenty of questions and discussion, and with refreshments provided by Lin and her team.

The Social was part of a cluster of TMAEG events held in February – see TMAEG’s flyers for the visits to the Waste Recovery Park (WRP) and the Linford Lakes Nature Reserve below. NB TMAEG’s summer visit to the Coton Manor Garden is the subject of a separate news item.

The Winter Social – plenty of ideas and interest

Bee Garden & Fernery

A walk the length of the Ashbrook Corridor – from Stonehill to Downland, shows much variety: a seasonal pond, a stream-side area planted with primroses and native bulbs, historic hedgerow reflecting an ancient boundary, stretches with TMAEG trees ‘notched’ into earlier planting and much more. The bee garden & fernery started some 3 years ago is another ‘bead on the string’ along this important landscape feature of TMA.

This area has three main components: the bee garden with its sequence of bee attracting plants; the ferns area with its complementary planting of foxgloves and; the native plants alongside the stream including hemp agrimony and water mint. The footbridge linking Haithwaite with the main path between Stonehill and the High Street provides a fine viewpoint, with the stub of the footpath leading to the line of the former bridge another one.

A succession of food flowers for the bees – from the garlic mustard of February (the bare spikey stems of which remain in this May view)

to the red campion of March through to June and the Oxeye daisy of May to September

To the phacelia of May to July — to the phacelia of May to July

The fernery bounded by its circle of coppiced hazels and foxgloves.

From Year Seven into Year Eight and from Midsummer into Winter

Open Gardens 2018

TMAEG’s largest venture last year was Open Gardens 2018, our fourth such event and our biggest yet. Radcote Lodge (garden shown below) was a new entrant and also hosted our planning meetings with the gardeners. A gallery of 130+ photos of all 24 gardens and other projects is available here.

The photos shown below are of a combination of two of the TMAEG schemes that we included in Open Gardens, and of some of the other things we did during the year.

Bee Garden and Fernery
This very varied area was one of TMAEG’s own Open Gardens projects – here are some of the wildflowers that came into their own after that Week-end.

borage – seen here with a visiting bee — Borage – seen here with a visiting bee

Mallow, with its pretty pink striped flowers.

Newly appeared this year, chicory - a member of the daisy family. — Newly appeared this year, chicory – a member of the daisy family.

Partnerships and ‘People Action’
A manifestation of our partnership with Ashbrook School is the tub planting on the school forecourt where the 12 tubs maintained by TMAEG look particularly fine alongside the ‘silver tree’. This year’s display was one of our best yet, the orange/red geraniums flowering long into the autumn.

‘Spot planting’ under our road signs is becoming quite a feature of Two Mile Ash. Often carried out by individual TMAEG members (this one by Lin) it brightens up these otherwise rather barren areas and demonstrates commitment to our local environment.

The Twin Gardens and Park Gateway
These photos show one half of the Twin Gardens and a view from the High Street towards the Local Park at the entrance to which the Gardens are positioned. The Twin Gardens are our second community garden and our biggest entry for Open Gardens 2018. They complete TMAEG’s work along the Park Gateway area and the emphasis now will be on keeping this area in good shape, supported by the local businesses and local residents.

The Ash Brook Corridor
Six years ago or so, it was practically impossible to spot that there was any water flowing in this watercourse across TMA. With the agreement of Milton Keynes Council, we adopted the corridor for enhancement, opening it up and planting trees and wildflowers. We seek now to maintain it as a biodiverse, semi-natural and visually attractive area. To take two examples (see photos), we aim to keep open views down the stream from the bridge over the High Street and to maintain the stream banks in a stretch of the corridor where wildflower seeding was carried out some five years ago (see above).

Stonehill Pond
We ‘autumn clean’ the Pond every year to remove branches and leaves and thereby prevent overmuch silting up. With our ten volunteers this year we were able to do not only that but also much work on the surrounding area. The stream sides were selectively cleared and the path was given a good sweep. One unexpected bonus, a wallet stolen several months ago was found in the pond and returned to its owner! Not surprisingly the money was gone but she was pleased to get the wallet back, nevertheless!

Gil and Barbara clearing brambles from the slopes behind to enable other wildflowers to spread.

Our volunteers providing an ‘autumn clean’ to the Pond. — The TMAEG volunteers providing an ‘autumn clean’ to the Pond.

The pond fully recharged after all the recent rain

Autumn Litterpick
On this litterpick we tackled the section of the Ash Brook between Downlands up as far as the edge of the Local Park Play Area. Five bags largely of cans and glass bottles were collected.

Introduction of power tools
With support from the Parish Council, TMAEG has recently bought two Lithium Ion battery powered tools – a hedge trimmer and a strimmer. We have now tried them out on several sites – the photos show Peter operating the hedge trimmer in a length of hedgerow containing TMAEG trees. He was quickly able to cut away the brambles to prevent encroachment on the trees.

Brambles cut away to prevent encroachment on the trees.

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