November Update

Hello everyone and welcome to the latest blog up date about life here at the Tree Life Centre.  As November is the last month of meteorological autumn regular readers will be aware that we are now entering our busiest time, for the newer reader I’ll fill you in as to why.  With the weather getting colder it means we can now dig up our native trees with less fear of damaging them as they should be entering dormancy.  Add to this the tale end of the wildflower planting season, again weather dependent, and optimum time for other conservation tasks you can imagine we have been very busy with a variety of activities this month!  As ever, I hope I have remember everything, well at least giving you a flavour of what we have been up to.

We kicked of the month by braving the stormy weather to help South Gloucestershire Council complete their activity management of nearby woodlands at Avon Valley Woodlands, which also contains a Site of Specific Scientific Interest (SSSI), found along the River Avon valley near Hanham, starting at the bottom of Conham Hill running along to the Castle Farm Road area.  We spent a couple of days getting very wet and coppicing mainly hazel in a small area od the woodland as different areas are done each year.  Despite the weather everyone who braved the days had a really good time as the majority of them were coppicing for the first time and can’t wait to get back out there to do it again.

As mentioned in previous blogs we are also assisting South Gloucestershire Council to help work towards their Biodiversity Action Plan.  This month we visited Lees Hill in Kingswood to help with a continuing project where a grass bank next to the playing fields and allotments is being turned into wildflower space.  A group of volunteers, armed with trays of wildflowers they have grown themselves from seed, helped with the management of the growth there, removing clumps of grass and replacing that with wildflowers.  Also, the group scarified some of the areas cleared and helped spread seeds whilst others cleared round the bases of existing fruit trees planted to remove competing growth.

As part of our national partnership with OVO Energy, the I Dig Trees campaign, we teamed up with Bristol City Council’s One Tree Per Child Scheme, the Bristol Conservation team and a group of OVO employee’s to help plant around one thousand trees creating a new woodland close to the Blaise Castle estate in the north west of Bristol.  This was the first woodland created in the partnership with many more areas planned across Bristol which we are delighted to be a part of.  We hope the team from OVO enjoyed their day out and hope to see you all again soon!

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