Home Covert plant survey

Home Covert is a woodland planted around 250 years ago, next to Moreton hall Community Centre. Home Covert is owned by St Edmundsbury Borough Council, with management as a community woodland by Woodland Ways. In the north- west corner are two craters, believed to have been caused when a Flying Fortress aircraft crashed in January 1945.

In May 2009, and again in May 2015, Woodland Ways members surveyed some tree and flowering plant species. The most species-rich part of the wood appears to be alongside the path through the wood, with a greater number of species recorded here rather than anywhere else. Garlic mustard, which is edible, and wood avens with its delicate yellow flowers, typically were found by the path and not elsewhere. It is considered that this is accurate, rather than reflecting surveyor bias towards recording beside the path. Away from the path, where the woodland floor was shady, there was a dominance of dog’s mercury and fewer other species.

Although six year is not long in the life of a woodland, some changes have occurred between 2009 and 2015. Wood sedge had been found in a small spot in 2009, on the side of the wood near the community centre, but could not be found this year. It seems like wood sedge has been lost from Home Covert, although there is a chance that it may pop up in the future. There has been a big increase in cow parsley and Lords and Ladies in the south of the wood. These light-demanding species may have increased as a result of tree felling behind the cafe and behind Mount Farm Surgery in recent years; the building occupants are rumoured to have been uncomfortable with trees close to their buildings, despite choosing to build right next to the wood.