From Field To Woodland

 So , it was Boxing Day, there were 225 trees left to plant this season, we needed to crack on and get planting.  Twenty five trees at a time has turned out to be just a nice number to deal with. The Woodland Trust delivery was conveniently bunched into bundles of twenty five and it turns out , 4x people for 2x hours can manage those in a relaxed fashion including tagging them (and if I am one of the four , I get to plant a few too).  We had planned to plant twenty five Hazel trees on Boxing Day in order to work off a bit of Christmas dinner, two hours would be enough time in the chilly weather and we didn't want to pressure ourselves.  We managed to get the planting almost completed in double quick time when Caroline (who features regularly in this blog - as she helps me out with so much stuff) asked a favour.  Her friend Patience Mackarness, who is both a writer and a fellow outdoor swimmer, had lost her elderly Mum the day before. On Christmas Day. Could we p...

 What to do when the Woodland Trust deliver 225 trees on the Friday you are moving home - and 6 days before Christmas? Well after a rapid request for help and advice, it seems, you don't actually have to panic. It seems that, as with small children kids on Christmas Eve, if you are crafty, while the trees are sleeping you can tiptoe about, moved them around a little and they don't even notice what is going on.  Unlike myself, the trees apparently, don't mind moving home a couple of times in quick succession.  With previous tree deliveries, because the delivered trees were bare root stock (just twigs with their roots exposed and no soil or plant pots) , we have had to move quickly and plant them before the roots dry out and before the trees notice they have been uprooted from their first home. Realistically, this means planting the trees within a week (and they have usually had a couple of days on a couriers truck by the time they reach me). Even a week is a little risky i...

 As a data geek and lover of google maps, the possibility of tracking all of the tree planting in a database and showing each numbered tree on a map, was too much of a temptation to ignore.  I had tried to encourage The Heart of England Forest to do this on a larger scale when I worked for them. Not individual trees, but a record of what they planted and where - so it could be visible on their website with a maintenance history and extra planting information. They did for a while and then after I left, it fell into disrepair.  For me though, tracking the planting was a must. As I have written in previous blogs, the pleasure of having kids plant trees and know for certain, which individual trees they planted and where, is too huge to pass up. I like to imagine that some of the children at least, will return in years to come and see how their efforts have been rewarded and witness the start of something, something  that will continue long beyond their own lifetimes....