Our intrepid volunteers gathered once again for a multitude of activites including litter picking, sea wall plant growth management and tree canopy lopping, once again achieving a splendid amount within the two hour session. As popular as ever, collecting litter from the river foreshore occupied most of us for the first hour, taking a huge amount of detritus of off the mud from Esplanade Gardens all the way to the Shorts slipway.
There is always a surprising amount of large pieces of refuse that have been left around the gardens and on the foreshore: we're almost certain to find sizeable chunks of board or marine ply and shopping trollies, while more surprising objects include children's tricycles, whole mattresses and even, this time, a Macbook laptop! As usual, there were a large number of glass and plastic bottles to be disposed of, small furnishings, bags and containers, polystyrene particles, maritime waste, and a few objects we couldn't identify. Everything we gather is then deposited at one of three collection points to be taken away and properly disposed of by our partners at Medway Council.
Another activity this month was to tackle some of the problematic plant growth along the foreshore which has started to damage the sea wall. With saltwater flooding an increasingly regular problem, especially following the extremely wet winter, we're now removing unwanted trees and shrubs whose roots will make the foundations of the wall crack and allow seawater to penetrate the Gardens' soil, which adversely affects the health of the grass and trees. Our volunteers got right to the root of the issue where possible, but some of the rogue plants are well established, so we'll continue this effort in the weeks to come, and keep advocating for the flood defences to be properly professionally maintained.
As Spring approaches, we're also getting back into the swing of our gardening efforts. We managed to find time in our session to give a couple of trees some attention, lopping their lowest hanging branches to keep them healthy and well-nourished and improve access beneath them. We're looking to become better organised at caring for the trees in 2026 - if you have an interest in trees and would like to make a positive impact to our precious green spaces, maybe you could be the right candidate to become our new Tree Helper?
We were happy to welcome Member of Parliament for Rochester & Strood Lauren Edwards again to our activity, and we're grateful for her ongoing support, particularly for writing to local residents and inviting them to join in too. As always, we're really thankful to everyone who turned out to help us and make yet another activity a great success.
If you'd like to join us for an activity session, please take a look at our Volunteer Activities calendar for more information and, as always, just
Hedgerows News
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Hedgerow Plants Secured from Woodland Trust
We’re delighted to share that FoRCE has been successful in our application to the Woodland Trust’s ‘Community Tree Pack’ scheme. This means that, in November, we will receive a free supply of native hedge plants to support our ongoing Hedgerow Project.
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Planting Our First Hedgerow
Our November volunteer activity saw us take an exciting step forward with our Hedgerow Project, as we planted the whips which will grow into our first hedgerow.