Tree planting at Styal on Sunday 15th November 2020

14 MNTV volunteers met Vicky in the car park at Styal for a slightly later start time of 10am - great for a Sunday morning lie in!  It was another gorgeous autumnal day of bright sunshine, how lucky we were as it had poured it down with rain first thing in the morning.

The worksite was a field just a short five minute walk from the car park.  We arrived at the field which had been split into zones with markers, zones one and two were in the lower part of the field on a slope facing the mill.  Zone three was higher up the field and more level but poorly drained.

At the start of the workday Vicky gave the introductory COVID safety talk and explained the task was tree planting.  There was a variety of trees to be planted including birch, cherry, willow, elder, holly, guelder rose, goat willow, gorse, hawthorn, hazel and blackthorn.

The first and second zone had already been planted up by volunteer children, the trees in these zones were planted two metres apart in groups of 3 to 4 trees.  Firstly we started by filling in the gaps in zone two which was on a slope and quite difficult to dig because the ground was hard.  The group worked in pairs; one person to dig the planting holes and the other person to plant the trees in the holes and mark with a wooden stick. 

   Top of the field looking towards the mill

The field has recently come back into the Trust because the tenant farmer retired.  It is arable land and not the best quality and is being planted with trees and shrubs for flood prevention 'slowing the flow'.  The field is on a slope which faces the mill.

The tree planting project has been filmed by Countryfile who will be continuing to return to the site to follow its progress.  The trees were purchased with funding from City of Trees and the fencing, sticks and other shrubs were purchased from funding through the Peoples Postcode Lottery.  The overall planting site is approximately 2 hectares.

A socially distanced group tea break...

After finishing zone two we moved onto zone three planting at the top of the field, due to this part of the field having poor drainage it was much easier to dig the planting holes.

However the drainage was an issue in some places, below is a picture of how bad it was...

... so Martin took up the challenge of creating a drainage ditch to reduce the surface water so that we could plant in this area.

... and soon enough the water was draining away... 

Thank you to Sue who took this lovely picture of a stunning tree in zone three of the field.

Zone three planting in action (below).

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By the end of the day we had planted over 1000 trees and the project is ongoing.