14th Jan 2022

YCV Post Friday 14 /15 January 2022 

Tree Planting Days at R B Organics by Pig Water Drain 

“I shall carry on planting trees until I can no longer.” …. said Reg Bingham 

Tree Warden & wonderful dendrophile, conservationist, birder, carpenter,  community spirited and thoroughly good chap! Leader of our gang. 

Reg has planted so many trees in and around Yaxley, that he was beginning to  run out of space for new ones! Oh no! But Andrew Burgess of R B Organics, leading light, organic farmer and wildlife enthusiast extraordinaire, came to  the rescue and suggested that we could plant some trees on his land. You can  see by Reg’s face how very pleased he was! 

The chosen site was alongside Pig Water Drain, Yaxley, on a small established protective, tree belt at the far end of the two reed beds. Some trees had been  planted there a few years ago, but a few had sadly died and left gaps. The idea  was to fill the gaps!

The Friday team was Reg, Nigel, John, Dave & Odette. 

There was Alder, Hawthorn, Oak, & Silver Birch plus a few extra trees that Reg and Dave had rescued from elsewhere, including Sycamore, Black  Chestnut and Apple & Hazel. 

Dave had grown two sapling Hazel trees together in his garden and had  twisted the stems to make them look beautiful. Odette didn’t know this and  feeling sorry for them, untwisted them! Sorry Dave. It’s a great idea! 

It was foggy, the air was damp, frost on the ground, our feet were cold, but did  we care? Not a bit! We absolutely LOVED IT! Time flew by! 

Nigel kept making us giggle when Reg, holding up a hairy, rooted Hawthorn said “You need to trim the bristly bits off your ends.” 

Working in pairs, on Friday and Saturday morning, we all very quickly  planted the trees, recycling some of the old tree guards too. 

On both days, the gang started a little later than 09.59 and we took the wheel barrow down from the garage, the second barrow has a puncture.  

The way down to the river was awful due to the thick mud and as there was no frost overnight, it remained gelatinous from the day before. 

On Saturday, Nigel, Matt and May made their way down to the site and met John.  

It was quite foggy but they had a wonderful sighting of a pair of young mute swans flying over us and a very large flock of finches flying towards the wild flowers sown by Tony Mears for them. 

There were about 70 trees to put in and we extended the line of the shelter  belt by about 20-30 yds. 

This is where John got very sneaky by using the mole holes to plant the trees  in. We were impressed by his ingenuity and jealous that most of the prime  hole were filled by the time we noticed. 

There were lots of evidence of thrushes consuming snails on the site and we  found a number of vole nests and runs, so a good wildlife habitat.