Oh My Blog – Joe Lycett Came Tree Planting With Willow The Dog!

Well, there were mixed feelings for the tree planting at Kings Heath Park today. It was a our last planting of the season with a school and my what a school! Planting 700 trees today means we are at a total of 98495  so far with two more plantings to go until we reach the magic 100,000!  The amazing ladies from the South Birmingham Ahmadiyya Muslim Women’s Group joined us and smashed their own target of planting 2000 trees for their centernary celebrations, well done! Local Councillor Mike Leddy joined us and was quick to grab a spade and some trees and dig deep. Last, but certainly not least, Joe Lycett, comedian extrodinaire also came and planted some trees with us too! Not only Joe, but his fantastic friend and Adam and Adam’s dog Willow!

Today we saw 11-pupils from Colmore Junior School , the dedicated allotment team working their proverbial socks off planting at the edges of Kings Heath Park. These students were professionals and knew isntinctivley how to plant trees, as they had already planted lots of fruit trees and hedging in their school allotment. Eager to get stuck in students were quickly pitting their wits against each other and although it was a very chilled our occasion, we could sesne the competition brewing stronger by the minute. In particular two students were competing for most trees planted. More of that later.

Twenty volunteers from South Birmingham Ahmadiyya Muslim Women’s Group brought their usual amazing gumption and gusto – bringing with them their bright smiles and lovely positivity as always – as well as refreshments, which we all were very grateful for, again on a very warm March morning planting trees can be thirsty work.

 

When Joe Lycett, Adam and Willow arrived we were so happy to see them. After a quick spade talk on how to plant whips and sapling trees Joe and Adam grabbed spades and planted Hazel, Oak, Field Maple, Alder and Crab Apple with help from the lovely Willow.

And just for a little while BTfL were able to take charge of Willow while Joe and Adam were busy planting. We love nothing more than a lovely dog at our tree plantings and having the opportunity to take Willow for a quick walk was an added bonus – not to mention how we always love to put a dog in our blog!

Joe and Adam planted lots of trees today and we really hope they enjoyed themselves – we’re pretty sure they did.

But what’s not to love. We’ve never known anyone ever leave our tree plantings without a smile a sense of achievement and a feeling of wellbeing. It’s always lovely to know that local people in their local area become part of the BTfL tree planting legacy. And anyone local to the beautiful Kings Heath Park will be delighted to know that super Celeb, and Super Brummie Celeb, Joe Lycett has planted some of these trees and is now part of that legacy, well if we werent proud enough already……

We’d like to say a special thanks to Joe for joining us because we know he must be super busy and because we were all very excited to see him we all asked for a photo. Joe was very accommodating and very kind and we are very grateful for that. As we are sure Joe must get asked to pose for a photograph, we as many times as we have planted a tree. (that’s 98495 times by the way!)

Before they left Joe thanked us for inviting him and told us he loves what BTfL are doing and enjoyed planting trees with us. Thank you Joe, but the pleasure is all ours!

As much as we love the serious business of tree planting we also love a wellie win! A wellie win you ask! Well over 16-years we have seen such an array of glamorous and fashionable wellies and boots, we alway get shoe envy! Todays wellie winner was the silver sparkly ones, (you know who you are) that glinted in the sunshine like Cinderella’s glass slippers!

One lady walking in the park, Anisa with her beautiful 18-month-old son Qais asked what we were doing. Of course we invited Anisa and Qais to plant some trees with us, And we are very proud to say that BTfL helped Qais plant his very first tree – we hope it’s not his last!

As the students were coming to the end of the planting realising that they had planted 700 trees today, they were suitably impressed with themselves – and of course so were we.

‘My Mom amd Dad wont believe it, 700  trees is a lot…., can’t we plant anymore.?…, I cant wait to get home and tell my Mom…., I’m bringing my baby brother here tomorrow to show him my trees…

Always lovely to hear and in the final furlong our two most competitive students had planted 35 trees each, desperate to out do each other they both scoured the area for any remaining trees to plant! While one student found two trees, his competitor found none as all but two of our 700 trees had been planted. Now it couldve been a fair and square win of 37 to 35. But our BTfL tree plantings aren’t like that and as as one student handed a tree to his friendly competitor, they agreed to draw on 36 all. Now if that’s not feeling the love we dont know what is!

So, it’s like we always say, connecting with nature, planting trees, improving the environment and the view, feeling the positivity that all this brings is a real treat.

So we say, more trees please!

More communitea!

More children  and adults invested in nature.

More whips, saplings, standards and feathers.

And of course more Joe Lycett!

Please view photos from our tree planting today, here

A huge thank you to everyone that joined us today, Joe Lycett, Adam and Willow the dog, Colmore Junior School, staff and students, South Birmingham Ahmadiyya Muslim Women’s Group,  Cllr Mike Leddy, Anisa and Qais, Simon Needle, Geoff Cole, Viv Astling, Alf Dimmock and Leon from the Wodland team.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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