Welcome one and all to this, the latest update of life at the Tree Life Centre here just outside of Bristol! With 2013 cracking on at a quick pace, February seems to have gone in a flash due to the busy nature of the Centre this past month.
To start with, some catching up on last months activities…here’s a news article about the tree planting some of our team carried out at a school near Weston-Super-Mare in association with Western Power Distribution.
With the bare-rooted tree planting season soon coming to a close we have had a rush on with many last minute orders, with the majority being very large indeed, but we won’t complain about that! You still have a month to go and we will be more than happy to help with any requests. Whilst supplying orders for places and organisations such as The Friends of Old Sneed Park Nature Reserve, which will be planted by our midweek conservation action group; Chelvey Designer Makers, who are planting a new hedgerow on their site along with some apple trees; continuation of the Goblin Combe order from last month; alongside preparing orders ready for Forest of Avon Trust and Redland Green Community Group. It has also left us with much space so we can finally plant out our seedlings and start to get healthy stock ready to be sold on in the Autumn! Also, the last of the cuttings have been completed so hopefully they will also be a success. The only bad side to this…everyone involved is dreading the next stock take that will soon be due!
In fact, due to the bare-rooted season coming to an end, the last day of the month saw a group of volunteers go round our home of Grimsbury Farm and planted up lots of very large Guelder Rose. It would have been a shame to see them go to waste due to them being realistically too large to sell and now far too big for our beds! Hopefully all the visitors (and animals too of course!) enjoy them being dotted around providing extra colour in the not too distant future.
Planting out the Guelder Rose.
Having said that we have had more serious and stressful events this past week after turning up two days in a row and finding vandals have got on site and kicked off the polytunnel door, thrown empty pots around and try to damage the plastic on the greenhouse, along with breaking up a table and using it as a ramp to scale the fence. If these people have so much spare time they could spend it being more productive and actually volunteer! However, we are all trying hard not to get too downhearted by the events and keep plugging away.
One major task that has been completed this month is a group of volunteers have constructed a permanent ramp, replacing our old wooden one. A good job was done all round and has made an improvement to the look of the Centre as the old wooden ramp was in the public access area, along with being much safer for use too of course!
All our diploma students have been progressing well with some completing their work this past month, so many congratulations to them. All the students have received very warm hoodies supplied by Dutchy College, who co-run the course with TCV. Don’t forget you can come along and sign up anytime as new students are always welcome. Its good fun, learn new things, meet new people and you’ll end up with a practical qualification, what more could you want?!
Three of our diploma students in their new hoodies
Finally, there are a few huge thank you’s. First off we received a cheque for £200 from our local ASDA this past week for winning their customer local charity vote, so thank you to everyone who voted for us, and, of course, to ASDA for the kind donation. Second, thank you to everyone who has so far donated to out text number recently. You can donate £3 by texting “TCV TLC” to 70444.
After receiving the cheque from ASDA (photo: Nick Skuse)
Parish notices:-
Just because the bare-rooted planting season is nearly over (end of March) don’t forget we have a variety of trees for sale in pots, including many varieties of apple trees of various sizes. Contact us for further details.
We are always welcome to new volunteers, so if you are interested in joining our friendly team then contact Ben, our project officer, and arrange a taster session. See our website for further details.
Also, our regional TCV centre runs a variety of other projects besides the Tree Life Centre. To see what activities are on offer pop over to the regional website.