Spring volunteering its rubbish, oh and railings, path edges, drains, willow fences …..

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All the rakes, brushes & cutting tools have been given a huge work out over the last few months to give a good prune back to all vegetation within a metre along the full course of the walkway. In doing so it means the walkway is wide enough for users to share,  there are less hiding spots of rubbish to be thrown in, we’ll need to do less trimming in the summer and as nesting season for the birds begins we can give them some peace & quiet.

In addition to the trimming we have dug out cobbles galore at Leith and Redbraes uncovering the walkway features lost to overgrowing vegetation over many years. Caring for the area in this way helps to demonstrate the pride we have in the walkway & will hopefully will lead to a reduction in litter as it looks more kept.

Of course there has been raking & brushing galore along every section of the walkway, on stairs and down ramps removing leaves, mud and other debris which users have been very appreciative about as the walkway has been drier and easier to use.

As the weather warms we are also back working on the railings – this will be a LONG job and we continue downstream from Balerno

Working with Willow is also not confined to the spiling project. Just upstream of the visitor centre is a wildflower meadow called the Children’s meadow. It’s always been surrounded by a fairly scabby wire fence so it was great to be able to buy in and replace this with a hand weaved replacement following funding by Edinburgh City council. 

We also started building willow fencing/dead hedges above the soakaway drains at Donaldson college, however this time we coppiced supplies from Murrayfield and transported it via the van for the first time. This is something we will be continuing come autumn as we get stakes in place and do more work to create a longer-term repair to an area that regularly floods. 

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