Health Walks
No Tuesday Health Walk again this month but if you feel you need to keep up a good habit, try this....
Tree Trail
Those people lucky enough to be allowed out for their one hour of exercise per day may be looking for suitable routes to avoid plodding the same paths for their daily routine. Holtby Wood, for example, has seen a large increase in walkers passing through and finding plenty of space to be able to follow the 2-metre rule.
Another flexible walk - the relatively new Dunnington Tree Trail - shows ways of getting in a variable amount of exercise and finding out some of the village’s vast range of tree cover.
This is a walk of some 2½miles around the village, in which 15 trees, most of which are native to Britain, are picked out to show something of their history, mythology and uses.
A map clearly shows the route, which could take between one and two hours, and can conveniently be cut into two at the bottom of Garden Flats Lane. Give it a go and keep safe.
Off Guard
One of the few uncomplimentary remarks made about Holtby Wood since it was planted ten years ago is that the plastic guards take away some of the attractiveness of the rapidly developing trees. The guards, held by wooden stakes, offer support to the tiny whips or saplings when they are planted, plus protection from animals for whom the bark is a potential source of nutrition; and a micro-climate to encourage growth.
As the trees grow the guards become less necessary, and in the case of the faster-growing trees such as hazels and silver birch, begin to crack along perforated lines designed for this purpose.
This year the decision was taken to remove the guards from the larger trees, and also from the many ash trees which are beginning to show signs of Ash Dieback, or Chalara fraxinea (more recently dubbed Hymenoscyphus fraxineus). This has allowed us to trim off dead branches, in the hope that some of them will survive and perhaps produce a strain of ash resilient to this notorious disease.
Now you seen them... now you don't.
