Thanks to all Friends of Forest Drive Park who turned out this morning to help us plant 315 mixed trees to form a new hedgerow – 16 of us today and great to see a mix of young and old helpers. Thanks to The Woodland Trust for providing the tree packs.
As well as a successful morning of planting, we also added some more wetland plugs and seeds around the edges of the mini wetland. Thanks to Volunteering Matters Action Earth Fund who helped with these.
Thanks also to Aberdeenshire Council Landscape Services Team who helped prepare the ground and make our job so much easier. Appreciate it 🙂
Great to see the mini wetland attracting new birds to the Park, lots of foot prints around the area. It’s also drawing water off the path creating its own little habitat.
Hopefully into next year a lot of the little projects come into fruition.
315 trees total –
Medium Wild Harvest 105 – a mix of hazel, blackthorn, crab apple, elder, dog rose, rowan.
Medium Wildlife 105 – a mix of hawthorn, rowan, blackthorn, silver birch, hazel, common oak.
Medium Year Round Colour 105 – a mix of hawthorn, dogwood, wild cherry, silver birch, rowan, hazel.
Unfortunately not all helpers were there at the end when we did our group photo.
As mentioned above, the mini wetland is also attracting new bird species to the Park which is fantastic to see. Photo of foot prints activity.
In addition to the tree planting we also added more mini wetland plant plugs and scattered seeds suitable for wet ground, wetland edges and surrounding areas of ponds. Thanks to Action Earth Fund from Volunteering Matters. They do a fantastic job of bringing people together, from all walks of life and backgrounds, to help turn local knowledge and expertise into action and progress.
Via their Action Earth funding opportunity we were able to purchase the additional wetland plugs and seeds for around the perimeter of the wetland area. Hopefully by Spring we start to see some of these plugs take hold. At present the wetland is more like a pond but this will eventually drain away once the rain stops.
Wildflower Plug Plant Mix for Wetland Soil – including Betony, Common Sorrel, Ribwort Plantain, Birdsfoot Trefoil, Wild Red Clover, OxEye Daisy, Self Heal, Meadow sweet, Sawwort.
Native Meadow Wildflower Seeds For Pond/River Edge – including Birdsfoot Trefoil, Meadow Buttercup, Red Campion, Gipsywort, Lesser Knapweed, Purple Loosestrife, Meadowsweet, Pendulous Sedge, Selfheal, Teasel, Tufted Vetch, Water Betony, Yellow Flag Iris, Yellow Rattle, Browntop Bent, Crested Dogstail, Strong Creeping Red Fescue, Chewings Fescue, Slender Creeping Red Fescue, Yellow Oat Grass, Sweet Vernal Grass.
Yellow Rattle Seed – we used some around the edges to keep the grass at bay but kept some back for when wetland dries out a bit – in case the grass encroaches.
