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?

www.redscapedesign.co.uk

Community Bluebell Planting and yes it was the whole community!!!

BCTV Volunteers

HSBC Volunteers

Keep Digging Reverend!!

First injury of the Day, Katie with a nettle sting

There are so many people in our school that have the ability and the drive to make things happen. Peter Greenwood is one of them. He is a dad who happens to work at HSBC and because of him the richmond HSBC managers came on a team building day (so much better than the SPA day they had intended to go on!) in the wilderness to help us to prepare the area for planting of bluebells (English Bluebells, Hyacinthoidies non-scripta of course).

BUT not only did we have 11 of the best of the HSBC (Peter, Mick, Ali, Mark, Catherine, Andy, Harpreet, Katie, Liz, Joy and Simon) , but we also had another 14 of the BCTV (British Conservation Trust Volunteers: Dan, Laura, Steve, Simon, Anna, Iain, Heather, John, Kevin, Aneel, Nick, Dans, Richard and Keith.) who not only volunteered but we had 3 of them leading the exercise with myself and also making available all their tools.

We also had The Rev Graham and Jerry and their friend Jane and the many parents that turned up including, Lucy (Great with a wheelbarrow), Alison, Lindsay, Suzy, Liska (hope I have spelt it correctly), Liz, Anne and Kate, as well as all my family including children, husband and not least my mum.

It was a truly community effort and we had the most beautiful November day that actually felt like Spring.

We managed to prepare the ground and plant 1500 bulbs.

Today the job was finished off by the pupils of the school who all came in class by class and managed to plant the rest of the 3000 bulbs we had for our Bluebell carpet.

The Richmond and Twickenham Times came in to document this and to make sure that the rest of the community also know what we are doing and trying to achieve.

Phase 2.1 is complete! Apart from the few bulbs that were left over for the children who were ill today and called in to the school in tears as they were missing their chance to plant bulbs and be part of the wilderness. What a lovely thing that they care so much!

Tree planting day will be Wed Dec 1st!! Keep the day free, Please!

www.redscapedesign.co.uk