Bowling Club
Our newest project is one of our most exciting yet—right in the heart of the village, at the Kenton-on-Sea Bowling Club’s most visible edge at the start of the the high street. Once choked with invasive Inkberry (Cestrum laevigatum) and Madeira Vine (Anredera cordifolia), this neglected patch was in desperate need of attention. The Bowling Club committee and members got involved and cleared the vast majority of Inkberries. This didn't reveal a fresh start—but years of dumped garden waste, rubble, and fly-tipping.
That’s where we stepped in...
Now, we’re setting out to restore and re-imagine this space, removing the remaining alien invasive plants and other debris to make way for a vibrant indigenous garden. Once complete, this area will become a living showcase of the local flora, transforming an eyesore into a source of community pride and ecological beauty.
Phase 1: The beginning
Although the Bowling Club had successfully eradicated most of the Category 1b invasive Inkberry (Cestrum laevigatum), what remained was a legacy of years of rubbish, green waste, building rubble, and hundreds of glass bottles.
Before any further progress could be made, we had to remove the glass bottles and other litter, extract all the building rubble, and consolidate decades of green waste into manageable piles for bulk removal.
Phase 2: Clearing the Milkwoods
Years of neglect had allowed this beautiful copse of White Milkwood (Sideroxylon inerma) to become smothered by a dense, light-blocking canopy of invasive Madeira Vine (Anredera cordifolia), along with massive Indian Caper (Capparis sepiaria) vines.
Although the Indian Caper is indigenous, decades of unchecked growth had caused significant damage, breaking many Milkwood branches and posing a potential safety hazard. As a result, we made the decision to remove both the invasive vines and the overgrown indigenous ones.
Phase 3: Clearing east fence
We weren’t able to move all the litter, rubble, and green waste efficiently from the east fence to the main removal point at the south fence, so this became a separate project.
Once again, we were surprised by the sheer volume of litter, bottles, and building rubble that had to be cleared first. However, the area is now fully prepared for landscaping.
Phase 4: Rubble & rubbish
Years of dumping and fly-tipping had left the area in a poor state. Unfortunately, much of the litter and rubble was mixed in with green waste, requiring a slow and careful separation process before the organic material could be removed.
The sheer number of bottles was astonishing—literally hundreds. We filled at least 18 bags with bottles, and we continue to uncover more as the work progresses. It’s been an unexpected (and sometimes amusing) glimpse into the history of SA Breweries!
Phase 5: Clearing green waste
The volume of green waste on site was far too great to manage or re-purpose entirely for composting. As expected from a Bowling Club, much of it consisted of many years’ worth of grass clippings. We retained a portion of this material for our own composting needs.
A significant effort was made to clear and relocate the excess. To facilitate this, we temporarily removed several panels along the south fence and brought in a TLB along with a couple of trucks.
In total, 13 truckloads of green waste were transported to the Bushman's green waste site, where it will be recycled into compost.
Phase 6: The hidden rubble tip
We initially thought this area would be a quick fix—easy to clear and re-establish. But as we got to work, we uncovered yet another mess: dumped rubble, plumbing pipes, old fence posts, heaps of unidentifiable metal, and, of course, bottles.
After clearing most of the litter and removing a large portion of the rubble, we brought in the TLB to speed things up.
Now, this area is almost ready to go…
Phase 7: Land-scultpting begins
We thought we had removed all the excess green waste, but we discovered more large pockets that were just covered by a thin layer of soil. This required removal or mixing with significantly more soil in order to create a long-term stable base for larger plants, paths and other structures.
The unfortunate discovery of a huge deposit of dumped engine oil also delayed us as it required removal as it had contaminated many cubic meters of soil.
So now we were left with massive piles here and deep holes there, it was time to pull the landscape together into a cohesive garden structure. This phase is a massive undertaking and will be on-going for a few months...
