Woodland regeneration and tree planting
Woodland regeneration and tree planting
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A third of our land is woodland, all of which is part of a 25 year regeneration scheme with additional measures forming part of our ongoing environmental stewardship programme. But our ambition doesn't end there.
During late 2019 we connected with a local tree planting charity and offered them the opportunity to replant a further few acres with a mixture of native tree species. Unfortunately the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020 called an early halt to the planting work but all was not lost. All through the subsequent 12 months we nurtured the young whips in our garden, keeping them going until during lambing in 2021 the group returned with a new cohort of volunteers and contractors. Not only did they finish planting all the whips that had survived, they also brought and planted hundreds more - adding about 750 trees to the woodland over the course of a few days.
On top of this we have planted two small copses in Well Meadow. One of a mixture of native species and the other largely willow to help dry out a slightly wet area. All this planting takes the total number of trees planted on the farm since our arrival past 1500.
If the test copses work out, and survive the attentions of the sheep using them as rubbing posts, we aim to add more in our other fields in the coming years.
The next target is 2000 new trees!
New shelterbelt
New shelterbelt
The additional land we acquired has a relative lack of shelter for the livestock - in the upper fields that we use for grazing there are few dry stone walls, no hedgerows, and just a couple of boundary trees.
Having somewhere to shelter from the wind and rain can make a huge difference to the energy needs of livestock and boost their health and performance.
During 2025 we decided we would plant a shelterbelt woodland on the western boundary to try and address this. Fencing out a 12m or so wide strip of land loses us a bit of grazing, but keeping the cattle out of the drainage ditch should improve water quality in the brook below. This strip also provided the space to plant around 200 native trees that will hopefully grow into a dense patch of woodland in the coming years. We interspersed the trees we bought from the Woodland Trust with plenty of willow whips cut from our own existing hedgerows. Once they establish they should deflect the wind and provide somewhere to hunker down away from the cold.
We even used fleeces from our own flock to provide some weed suppression mulching around the bottom of each tree!
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