Hope for the Lappinch

A: Under an hour! Can you believe it?!

Thanks to our 40-odd volunteers who came prepared to plant, in return for the promise of sausages, cake and perhaps a pint or two of Weetwood Best, we were able to whizz through the planting and realise another step in our plans.

The idea started last October when the opportunity to apply for a grant from The Mersey Forest arose: https://www.merseyforest.org.uk

Following consultations with our local heritage officer, we decided to extend an existing small woodland corridor that runs along a little river valley adjoining our land, and to create a new hazel coppice close to our recently created newt ponds.

When the total came to 500 trees we were somewhat daunted – even more so when The Mersey Forest team told us their manpower for any actual planting of the trees was unlikely to be available for what was left of this (planting) season. If we wanted the trees to go in this year, we would have to do it ourselves!

So we decided to have a planting party… surely with plenty of people the job could be accomplished, and, armed with special planting spades loaned to us by The Mersey Forest, it certainly was!

HUGE thanks go to all our friends and family who turned up to get muddy and make this goal such a tremendous success. Aged 6 to 80 they all got stuck in and each tree whip was carefully notch planted and supported with a cane and rabbit guard. Big thanks also to Will at the Mersey Forest for supporting this scheme and, as ever, to Nicola at ELM Associates https://elmassociates.co.uk/ for all her invaluable support and advice. Thanks also to the British weather which provided glorious sunshine for the planting day and a welcome break from weeks of rain!

For those interested we went for a mix of native British trees with a particular emphasis on willow, alder and dogwood that we know thrive on our wet ground. We were also careful to choose our sites carefully, picking awkward spots and corners that did not use up good quality farmland and, from a visual perspective, did not detract from the open, medieval field landscape surrounding us – a consideration that was helpfully highlighted by our local heritage officer in the planning stage of the project. Sadly, given some of the recent softwood commercial forestry schemes across Mid-Wales and the Scottish Borders, it seems far too little consideration is being given to these important matters in the rush to meet poorly considered tree planting / carbon offset targets.

Anyway, with a week now having passed, and yet more rain, our little trees seem to have settled into their new homes well. The next job will be to keep all of the whips clear of competing grass, so perhaps another tree party will be called for later in the year!!