Our forestry

Growing our trees

We have planted oak, ash, larch, birch and scots pine and many other tree species, in a manner that is not 'normal' for new forests. Rather than planting single crops in groups, we decided to mimic nature and mix things up a little. This means that our trees grow together, each adding its own qualities to the ecosystem, just as nature intended. It means that they encourage each other to grow as they battle for light, for example, rather than being surrounded by the same tree growing at the same rate - we work our trees hard so they grow quicker towards the light lest they miss out! The larger trees also provide shelter from the wind for the smaller ones, helping them achieve their potential much quicker.

This method of forestry also provide a healthy mix of nutrients into the soil too, so the trees are getting a variety of goodness, not just their own 'produce'.

Coppicing

30,000 of our trees can be coppiced, which means they can be chopped in such a way that several trunks will grow to replace the one that has been removed.

You may think that planting 70,000 trees was a huge undertaking - and it was, to some extent. However, we are happy to admit that we did do a degree of cheating by planting many of our trees into soil that had already been dug up by diggers that we had used to dig out drainage ditches that would help the water on the mountainside run into our specially constructed lake, so the planting was a little quicker than it may otherwise have been.

Our lake

Our lake was constructed to make sure that the silt dislodged by our forestry activities and tree roots would not harm the immediate ecosystem - instead, all the water drains into our lake where it stays, with the water that we pass back on down the mountain free from nastiness as a result. The lake also makes for a picturesque place too spend a summer day, swimming, boating or paddling - and we hope to add trout to it soon too (although the heron also seems to be hoping for that to happen!).

Award-winning forestry

Our forestry work has been of such note that we won accreditation from the Forestry Service: according to their surveys our trees were the strongest and fastest growing within the forestry scheme (for trees that are 5 years old to be 20 foot high in 2009 its pretty good going!).

Forestry education

As an educational charity, we want to pass on the joys of forestry to others, which is why we plan to introduce a tree trail that visitors will be able to follow, helping them to learn more about the importance of sustainable forests - and why our forestry techniques can be learned from and even improved on. We will be doing this in conjunction with the Forestry Service and Greenbelt.