15 December 2013 - What a difference a year makes, this time last year we had already experienced our first snow of the winter and the copse was very bare, whereas this year we still have a lot of colour left on the trees and are walking on a carpet of red and gold leaves.

If you look around at the top of the copse you will see the brilliant pink of the spindle-berries. We had a good Work Session at the beginning of the month when we did quite a lot of clearance work and repaired the steps from the upper twitten down to the middle path. Our next work session is on 8 February 2014 when we hope to start work on clearing the ground around the silver birches in preparation for planting wild flowers and grasses. 20 July 2013 - We had a very good Work Session in June when we put up 3 leaflet holders in the copse, all the leaflets went within the first couple of weeks so we know people are interested in learning about the copse and hopefully some of them may want to join the Friends Group and come along to the Work Sessions. Though we were quite a small group our annual Barbecue and picnic was enjoyed by all who came along and we were very lucky in that the rain held off. The last couple of weeks have seen the copse really dry out and the Copper Beech which was looking very good in June with all its new leaves is now looking a little stressed, thankfully the gardeners from Hove Park have taken it under their wing and they are now watering it regularly so it should be ok until the rains return. Thanks are also due to a number of our members who carried buckets of water to the tree to help it survive. There are some very enterprising youngsters using the copse at the moment and they have built some excellent natural wood shelters from fallen branches, most impressive. We are beginning to look at the Art Work for the Information Boards which we will be putting up later in the year, if anybody has any photographs of the wild life in the copse, particularly birds or small mammals or any historical photos for example showing the copse after the 1987 'hurricane' or the wood cavings which were done from the fallen trees and they are happy for us to use them on these Information Boards we would be extremely grateful to receive them, you can email them to info@threecorneredcopse.org.uk . 26 May 2013 - at last some spring sunshine and the copse is looking glorious with sky high cow-parsley growing along all the paths, the lovely fresh green of the new leaves and at last some flowers on the English Bluebells we planted at the top, at the moment they are quite sparse but they have been badly delayed by the weather and hopefully year on year they will make more of a display. 5 May 2013. Well it is spring again and the copse is at last beginning to get back to normal after the endless rain and snow of this long winter - it really did become a mud bath in the winter and I know many dog owners had to abandon walking in the copse because it was like an ice rink it was so slippy - in February we did at least see the snowdrops we'd planted last year come into flower in the top copse, there were over 50 new clumps and they should naturalise so next year the display will be even better - when the snow fell the copse looked like a picture and it was good to see the children out sledging. In February we heard that our bid for an Environmental Sustainability Grant of £1820.00 had been successful - we shall be using the money for proper Art-worked Information Boards, similar to those you can see on Green Ridge, leaflet holders, bat boxes & dormouse boxes, beech tree whips and a meadow-mix of grass and wild flowers to go round the silver birches. The February work-session was spent mainly trying to clear the copse of litter and fallen debris but a lot of effort was also put into removing the old metal post from the top of the green. Our April work-session saw us making a start on putting up the Bat-boxes which hopefully will become occupied over the year. The copse is now beginning to don its spring colours with the cow-parsley growing fast, the hawthorn in blossom and the new leaves unfurling on the trees, it won't be long now before those bluebells in the woodland at the top of the copse begin to flower and we will see whether or not they are English !! certainly there are many clumps with the finer leaves of the English Bluebell but unfortunately there are also some Spanish bluebells coming through left over from those we planted in error two years ago, as soon as we are clear which is which we will dig out the remaining clumps of Spanish Bluebells. Plans for the summer again include a barbecue & picnic following the 15 June work-session so I do hope as many people as possible will join us for that. 19 January 2013. Snow. Older News