Tag: worms

‘Everyone Should Plant At Least One Tree in Their Life – Here! Here!

Well it was our first whip planting of the season and the sun shined –  Hallelujah!

   

We eased ourselves into it by planting 500 whips of varying species at Spark Green Park. Our wonderful friends and students at Nelson Mandela School joined us, bringing their very enthusiastic and devoted Eco Committee. Along with some very smiley and hardworking students from Moseley School and Sixth Form.

As the older students buddied up with the younger students our planting was well under way before we could say, ‘spades at the ready!’ Not only did we have students planting trees, but five volunteers from HSBC were raring to go too. We were privileged to have the Lord Mayor, Mohammed Azim come and help us plant trees, as well as Councillor, Councillor Shabrana Hussain from the Sparkbrook & Balsall Heath East ward.

   

What a wonderful team we were, if we don’t say so ourselves!

Lots of chatter and lots of digging as we undertook notch planting for our whips – digging individual holes for each of the 500 whips planted. It sounds like hard work and it is, but it’s a lot of fun too and in such good company. The Lord Mayor grabbed a spade and planted lots of trees, working with the children chatting to them and enjoying the energy and enthusiasm buzzing around us all. When given a, Tree Lover’s League Badge, the Lord Mayor pinned it on is lapel with pride immediately and carried on digging!

A curious passer-by seeing all the activity and a wonderful sense of togetherness asked, what’s going on here then? ‘Tree planting, 500 trees, why don’t you come and join us,’ asked Sue, our BTfL Committee member! Chrissy, the lovely passer-by grabbed a spade and started digging immediately, ‘what a fantastic thing to do, I’m so glad I’m here.’ She exclaimed. Chrissy lived locally and was happy to invest a short and productive time in her local park improving the environment, enjoying the community spirit and making her local park a more beautiful green space than it was before!

   

HSBC volunteers brought a lovely sense of real pride and pragmatism with them and gelled quickly with the younger students, working in groups, guiding the younger students and supporting them with the harder digging.

The children from Nelson Mandela School enjoyed digging the holes and finding worms and placing the trees carefully in their individual holes. But trees aren’t the only thing on their environmental agenda. Students from Nelson Mandela School are reducing their disposable plastic bottle use to zero by introducing a reusable plastic bottle personalised with the school’s logo. The students undertake a regular litter pick, they have canvassed local businesses and local-residents about the importance of being more environmentally friendly and leading a more sustainable lifestyle. As well as getting the road near to their school closed for seven- hours during Clean Air Day in June 2020.

   

While Moseley School didn’t want to let go of their spades of and asked enthusiastically, ‘are there any more trees to plant?’ These students made sure that all the roots of the trees were covered in soil, deep in the ground and sitting straight up to give these trees the very best start in their lives. When the students from Moseley School understood, they had contributed to a 500-strong tree planting legacy in their local area, their response was – Wow! Asking all the students if the trees had been given any names? ‘Well all these trees are our eco-friends, so we’ve called them our eco- friends.’ And when we think about trees and their amazing positive environmental capacity, they are everyone’s Eco Friend – everyone’s Eco Best Friend.

   

The wonderful group dynamic, the positivity about connecting with nature, and appreciation of trees is something BTfL celebrate at every new tree planting event. It’s not something every person experiences when they get up for work in the morning. But we are lucky because it happens to us every day. But that only comes from working with such wonderful groups of students, school staff and volunteers! It’s a magic formula and we advise everyone to get a bit of it whenever they can – because everyone should plant at least one tree in their life!

Please click on the photo album for this event, here

Testimonial from Nelson Mandela School, ‘The ECO Committee from Nelson Mandela Primary School were involved in tree planting in our local park.  It was a great opportunity provided by BTFL   for the children to expose their love and concern for the environment.  We are trying very hard as a school to reduce waste,  use of plastic,  reduce pollution, save energy,  and generally looking  after our local area.  I would like to thank BTFL for supporting us in our mission to protect the environment. Thank You’

Nick-Names for Every Tree at Bournville Park Tree Planting

The sun shone again for us at Bournville Park last week when we planted 10 ornamental cherry trees with Bournville Village Junior School. Bournville Friends of Parks and our wonderful corporate volunteers of the day T.A. Cook.

With 20 eager children and four brilliant volunteers from T.A. Cook, our corporate volunteers have been operating for 25-years so the company decided that to celebrate their 25th year they do 25 good deeds this year! What a wonderful idea! So the staff  voted for the 25 good causes they wanted to help. Lucky for BTfL were have been chosen as one of T.A. Cook’s good causes and we couldn’t be happier about that. Our planting event came at the request of Joan Hosfield, one of the Friends of Bournville Park.

Bournville Village School is right next to the park so the children walked over to meet us at the planting site. Eager to get going, a quick spade safety talk, the children asked all about the trees they were planting. In-fact they were so impressed by the trees thy decided to give each tree a name. Bob was our first tree, then came Alex, the children decided on a gender-neutral name for tree number two, then came Archie, Jeffy, Jefferina, Sunflower, Sparkle, Ben, Blossom and Sharon.  All great names we are sure you will agree. The children were very impressed that they were planting blossom trees and could enjoy their beauty each Spring. They enjoyed chatting about football with our T.A. Cook volunteers, there was some friendly rivalry when it was discovered there was a mix of Birmingham City and Aston Villa fans planting trees together. Worms seemed to be the biggest subject of the day, there were plenty of worms in the park and the children kept finding them, studying them, before gently placing them back in the ground. As we planted 10-standard flowering cherries on the left side of the stream, the children admired more standard trees on right-hand-side of the stream that had been planted with Bournville Village Junior School and BTfL on a couple of years before.

 

We were also treated to a visit from Liz Clements, Councillor for the Bournville and Cotteridge Ward. Liz was very interested to see what BTfL were planting and how we were working with the school children and T.A. Cook and Friends’ of Bournville Park and was thrilled to see more trees planted in Bournville Park.

   

Not only did the children enjoy planting trees, enjoying the fresh air and the wonderful tem work, they were great multi-taskers too, teaching us here at BTfL how to floss. ‘Floss,’ we said, we do that twice a day after brushing our teeth! ‘No, no, no!’ The children insisted, ‘flossing is a dance.’We were then, treated to full display of flossing from the children, while digging! After a five-minute floss failure from BTfL we decided tree planting was our forte – and flossing wasn’t!

Please check out the photo album here https://photos.app.goo.gl/kJ5TLr88933FQExN9