Thanks to “you know what” and various other constraints, our Planting Trees for a Brilliant Future project has taken the best part of the last year and culminated on Sunday 10th October, with a small group of members from our Planet subgroup attended the Falkland Road site of the Lichfield and Hatherton Canal Restoration Trust to plant 61 saplings there.
During 2020-21 our target was to plant 100 trees to celebrate the SIGBI Centenary and we’ve exceeded that, happily. The trees have been planted in a range of settings via a number of mini projects which form our Planting Trees for a Brilliant Future project 2020-21.
It’s fair to say that we didn’t have any difficulty whatsoever in getting hold of trees, but what was much more difficult was finding places to plant them ironically, because of course, you have to get the permission of the landowner in order to be able to do so. It was for this reason that as a Club we decided to partner with L&HCRT as we knew that they have ongoing tree planting activities along all the areas of the canal that they are restoring.
Originally we aimed to plant our first trees with L&HCRT in November 2020 but were unable to do so as land which they were expecting to have had transferred to them from the local county council had not materialised. As a result, six members took on the job of sapling-sitting, which entailed getting hold of 10-15 of the Lichfield and Hatherton saplings (provided under the Woodland Trust’s community scheme), finding a suitable spot in their gardens and keeping them watered and looked after for, as it turned out, for the next 12 months!
We were finally able to plant them on the 10th October 2021. And it’s fair to say that when the “sapling-sitters” came to lift the saplings, many of them had actually rooted through the pots into the ground! So it was slightly more work than we were anticipating. The saplings had done very well over the last 12 months, but the top prize goes to Julia Collinson, whose saplings were twice as big as everybody else’s. So we are wondering if she was feeding them on the quiet? However, they were all beautiful. They had all thrived and we were able to plant a wide range of species including oaks, beech, hazel and silver birch, along the route of the new Claypit/Fosseway Lane canal junction on Falkland Road, Lichfield.
Separately, we have also planted 22 Hawthorn trees. Hawthorn is an extremely environmentally valuable tree. It’s very undemanding and grows almost anywhere even in rock crevices and other unreachable places. It’s the most common tree planted in hedges in the UK and over 200 plant-eating insects depend on hawthorn. So the ecological value of the tree is very high because it provides protection and food for many animals.
We have also planted a centenary mini orchard. This is on land owned by a member at Tamhorn and contains over 20 different fruit trees including green and red eating apples, cherries, plums, cooking apples, pears and of course damsons! We aim to be able to produce our very own Club damson gin in four or five years’ time all being well.
Back in June 2021, we held our planet environmental conference which was attended by Ian Retson of the Woodland Trust. Ian was extremely helpful because he gave us a lot of advice in terms of the kind of trees that we could readily plant as part of our SIGBI Centennial project.
His two main recommendations for most gardens were Guelder Rose and Dogwood. The red berries of the Guelder Rose are an important food source for birds, including bullfinch and mistle thrush. The shrub canopy provides shelter for other wildlife and the flowers are especially attractive to hoverflies. Dogwood leaves are eaten by the caterpillars of some moths, including the case-bearer moth. The flowers are visited by insects and the berries are eaten by many mammals and birds. Both are also suitable for all kinds of gardens – whether you’ve got a tiny little postage stamp or a much bigger area – and they’re also very beautiful, particularly in the autumn and winter when they give stunning colour and interest.
The main point that Ian made at the planet conference was that it’s very important to use native trees and trees which are grown in the United Kingdom to avoid importing any diseases or problems as a result. So we’ve been very careful to tick both of those boxes with all the work we’ve been doing over the last 12 months, to get to our 100 trees target.
We’ve exceeded our target now and it’s fair to say that we’ve also done other nature/environmental projects, including the planting of more than 200 woodland bulbs, including wood anemones up in a patch of woodland nearby member Liz Leaver’s home. We are also hoping to plant a couple of small columnar apple trees at the Spark Children’s Centre in Burntwood, but we don’t think we’ll get to those before the end of this year. They may have to wait until spring 2022 now.
We’ve really enjoyed this project, and although it took longer than we would like in some ways, we genuinely believe that we’ve made a big difference to our local area and our own well-being.
The 10th October when we were working with the Lichfield and Hatherton Canal Restoration Trust, was a stunningly beautiful day. One of those perfect days you sometimes get in October when the sun shines, the sky’s blue and the temperature’s actually very warm for the time of year.
The soil was absolutely glorious. So although we were very prepared to dig deep, the land was kind to us and we managed to plant the saplings relatively easily although there were only a few of us. So we had to get going and keep going. Both Karen and I were musing on the importance of trees while we were digging and planting…Karen’s dad died on the 10th of October a few years ago and for her the planting of the trees was very symbolic and matched her mood in terms of thinking about her Dad. Similarly, my oldest friend Jeanette unfortunately died around this time of year. So our sentiments were somewhat similar about that and it made the planting of the trees on such a beautiful day all the more special as a result.
#PlantTreesForABrilliantFuture.