the woodland
tree planting
In March 1998, two intrepid volunteers from Conservation Volunteers Northern Ireland arrived at the school with plastic bags full of 800 trees. Armed also with an array of junior spades and other assorted tree-planting paraphanalia, they set to work with each and every child in the school and nursery having a go at planting at least one tree.
The weather was good and the work progressed as, one by one, each class made their way to the garden to be shown how to plant a tree, and how to do it safely! As ever, the enthusiasm of the volunteers was mirrored by that of the children and it was sometimes a slight struggle to ensure that the trees ended up in the right place. But, at the end of the second day, the two volunteers loaded their van with the muddy tools, content that the work had been completed well and that they could escape for a well-earned rest.
The different areas of the garden had been planted with different trees – hazel in the hazel coppice, willow in the willow area and a mixture in the ‘woodland edge’. Many of the trees were given names by the children and this fact perhaps illustrates why the garden has never suffered from vandalism – ownership was an issue from the beginning and the ‘owners’ of the garden were to be the children from the local community.
Many of the children have now grown up, but they have been able to watch their handiwork develop into the garden of which the school is now justly proud.
In the following weeks, sycamore stems weeded from a local estate woodland were put in place as edging to ensure the grass cutters didn’t damage our newly planted trees (they weren’t much to look at for a while afterwards). The grass was sprayed off between the trees and a mulch of chipped bark applied to keep down the weeds until we could start to introduce the wildflowers that thrive under the shade of trees.
Over the years, a few trees have been removed to allow the others to develop, but only a few didn’t make it on their own. The remainder have flourished.