Tree Planting Day in National Tree Week

Alison, Caroline and Steve from the BCTV

HSBC and the Rev Jerry who turned up for lunch and then worked very hard afterwards

Gorilla Gardening with Anna Doeser of the BCTV

Natasha from HSBC with the pupils of HWINS being photographed by Niall O'Mara from the Richmond and Twickenham Times.

Will we, won't we? That was the question of the moment as soon as the snow was forecast at the weekend. I spent many minutes looking at the weather and trying to work out what to do. The Tree Council (who gave us the grant to buy the trees), wanted us to plant in National Tree Week but not to the detriment of the plants and the English Woodlands Nursery (Thanks Jo!) was delivering the trees the day before the big dig so if we didn't plant them, who would and when? Before Christmas or in Jan/Feb when the ground would most likely be more frozen!! What should we do??!!

So this morning it was snowing and it was cold. But did that stop us from planting 15 new trees?? No Siree!!

Most of the HSBC staff from the Kingston Bridge branch volunteered to plant up the new trees for the wilderness. Thank you to Richard Gimblett for letting his team of Matt Wilshaw, Paul Jaggers, Natasha Munro, Fedele Dechiara, Ross Qualters, Sheetal Verma, Rasher Zaater, Jenny Montgomery, Mark Steedman, Mark Poole and Sarah Leech come along for the day and plant up the wilderness. We would not have been able to do it without them. Thanks Peter for organising with HSBC again.

The Parents from both Hampton Wick (Abid Ikram, Alison McNaughton, Zhen and Leiske) and St Johns (Caroline Sayer) also came and the Rev Jerry just came for lunch but we still enjoyed having him too. (No really ... he worked hard all afternoon.)

And the Gorilla Gardeners from the BCTV Anna Doeser and Steve. Who brought all their tools and knowledge.

It was a great, if cold day and I hope all the trees appreciate that we planted them with care, manure, bonemeal and give us a good display in the spring.

Trees planted were:

2 Wild Cherries (Prunus avium)

3 Comman Alders (Alnus glutinosa)

2 Field Maples (Acer campestre)

1 Pedunculate Oak (Quercus rober) In the future in my mind I see this as a huge tree with a tree house around it.

2 Mountain Ash (Sorbus aucuparia)

1 Disease Resistant Elm (Ulmus lutece)

3 Hornbeams (Carpinus betulus)

1 Aspen (Populus tremula)

Next projects will be hedging the perimeter and then planting up the pond. Dates to follow. See you then?

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