Category: Planting sites

BTFL planting season 2018/19 comes to an end.

Today marked the final planting event for schools, communities and families with BTFL for this season. Trees are now leaving their winter dormant period, so we will suspend planting until November this year when we begin again for our 2019/20 season !

Our thanks to everyone that has joined us on site, ‘Friends’ of parks, schools, corporate groups and volunteers. We couldn’t do it without your support. We also need to give special thanks to BCC Woodland team, who make sure all our spades and trees arrive at the right place and prepare all our sites. Finally a thank you to all the BCC Parks staff and our BTFL volunteers who give their time to make things happen!

Keep watching this site to see what else we are up to, as we are busy with schools and events during the summer- helping to spread the word about the importance of trees.

 

Families and Friends sponsor trees with BTFL.

Families and friends who sponsor trees with BTFL get to come along and plant the trees themselves, in a Birmingham Park. This year our venue was the Lickey Hills Country Park.

This year,  over 50 ‘planters’ joined us to plant well over 500 new saplings in an area that has been recently cleared. Sponsors are able to make a donation and are welcomed, along with their families and friends, to join BTFL staff and volunteers planting up new areas of woodland. Often people are planting in memory of a loved one or maybe to celebrate a birthday or special event…….or just for fun!

After initial safety instruction they all set off to plant their saplings and we have tried to capture that moment and also the groups who were working together via this link. 

Why not join us next year? You will find details on how to take part on this web site. 

Busy day at Norman Chamberlain Playing Fields.

Today we returned to Norman Chamberlain playing fields to plant some much smaller saplings than those we planted  last Saturday….but there were 1500 of them!

Luckily, we had many hands to make light work of the planting as we were joined on site by pupils from Tile Cross Academy and Dame Elizabeth Cadbury school plus volunteers from HSBC,    Shah Satnum Ji Green S Welfare Force and staff from the Woodland Trust. Add to that the 3 BTFL staff and 2 of our committee plus the Woodland Team (who had already done all the preparation)…..and we were done in just over an hour. Amazing !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First of all we had to make sure that everyone had good instructions as to their role and how to make sure they carried it out safely…….but even more importantly, we needed to make sure we fed and watered them all at the end!  Our thanks to Green S Welfare Force for supplementing our lunch with some very tasty extras. Follow this link to see us all at work.

 

Trees- In memory of Leo McKevitt

Friends and family of the late Leo McKevitt met this morning to plant some beautiful trees in his memory. (Rowans and Maples)

Today’s trees were sponsored by Leo’s family and planted in an area close to his heart- Norman Chamberlain Playing Fields. This was also an area that Leo knew better than most- as he worked as the Senior Ranger here, and later at Woodgate Valley Country Park. Immediate family were joined by members of the Friends groups he had worked alongside.

Leo was well known to all of us at BTFL as he had great skills with all the children and adults that attended our events and always came up with  new ideas to engage all ages.

He will be sadly missed by family, friends and colleagues, but we are sure he will have been looking down with a smile as we all battled against the wind to keep the trees, and ourselves, upright! You can see our efforts via this link.

Our thanks to the Old Saltleians RFC for allowing us to use their sports pavilion to get out of the wind for a well earned hot drink, and special thanks to the McKevitt family for choosing to sponsor trees with BTFL.

Worst weather ever for Deutsche Bank workshop!

Every year we welcome Deutsche Bank staff to a ‘Woodland Workshop’ where they get a chance to learn some outdoor skills and the Rangers benefit from their assistance on site.

Today there was a twist……..in that the weather was possibly the worst we have seen this year and our original plans for a workshop in the woods with a open air campfire lunch were literally washed away!

For safety reasons, the woods were deemed too dangerous in the high winds so the decision was made to divert to working on a project to restore the heathland on ‘Bilbury Hill’. That involved removing brambles and self set silver birch and proved a real challenge as this area of the hills is very high and very open and the rain was exceptionally heavy.

If you follow this link you will see how wet it was (by the quality of the photographs!) but also how everyone soon warmed up, ready for lunch, once we retreated from the weather. Unfortunately it had to be cooked in an oven instead of on an open fire, but that didn’t stop everyone enjoying a hearty meal.

Lots of helpers at Senneleys Park extension.

Today we welcomed 29 pupils from Woodcock Hill Primary School to continue planting in Senneleys Park, but this time in the nearby extension to the park (adjacent to Newman University). Some of their pupils had worked with us in late 2018 in the main park area, and were keen to plant more trees!

Volunteers from Deutsche Bank Birmingham, and students from Bournville College (SCCB) helped boost the numbers, and it took just over an hour to get 5 large trees and 500 small saplings into the ground.
Last year we were lucky enough to meet volunteers from a national group called Green S Welfare Force and today they travelled all the way from London in the South and Warrington in the North to help.

They stayed behind to help check that every sapling was tucked up warm in the ground and that none had been inadvertently left exposed. Such a shame we couldn’t show them some lovely sunshine in Birmingham, but we hope to meet them again in March on one of our final plantings at Norman Chamberlain Playing Fields. The promised rain held off till we had finished, and you can see from our gallery that everyone had a great time….despite the change in the weather!

Perry Common Rec was full of planters today!

We think this post says it all. Well done, the local community. Over 150 pupils and 50+ adults turned out in force today to help us start the replanting of Perry Common Recreation Ground, after extensive work following the building of some new housing and flood prevention measures devastated this green area. Today’s efforts were the start of a long term replanting initiative.

To say it was busy was an understatement….but everyone pitched in and worked together to plant close to 1500 small saplings that will hopefully create some eco friendly copse areas on this open land.

There were so many schools and groups involved that we have decided just to list them, but would refer you to our album of the day to get a closer look at their involvement.

Pupils from: St Margaret Mary RC Primary, Oasis Short Heath Academy and St Bernadette’s RC Primary ( between 40 and 60 pupils from each!). We would also like to thank the many parents and staff (and mini bus drivers) that accompanied them to site to help with planting.

Our thanks also go to all the adult volunteers who came along from Deutsche Bank Birmingham, Witton Lodge Community Association and Birmingham University students (BADG group), as well as our own volunteers and the BCC Woodland Team.

Unusually today we all managed to get in a photo together, along with Linda from the Friends.

I feel sure there will be more photos on the Witton Lodge Community site as well!!

So many leaves at Garrison Lane Park with BVCS !

We came very close to being buried by leaves today at Garrison Lane Park…..and the amazing London Plane trees on this site were awe inspiring but Bordesley Village Community School had tree planting on their minds………

BVC School is very close to this park and most of the pupils use the playground here. They also come here to play football with their Sports Teacher occasionally, so they were all familiar with this open green space in an extremely urban area in the shadow of the ‘Blues’ ground.

Their task today was to add 5 new large standard trees to the perimeter of the site and then plant 100 smaller whips in one corner. As you can see here, they made a great job of both tasks and hopefully a small coppice will mature in this empty corner. Well done to them all for working hard to get this job done in record time and we hope to work with them again in the summer, when we will be revisiting to see all their trees in leaf.

Corporate volunteers and local pupils work together at Glebe Farm.

This morning the whole of Glebe Farm Recreation Ground was a sea of frost……..but the sun was glorious and the sky was blue.

Year 4 pupils from Audley Primary school were assisted on site by staff from HSBC and Selfridges (Birmingham) as they worked side by side to plant 1000 young trees. Today we were also joined by the Woodland Trust, a local Councillor and a representative of the Friends of the Kingfisher Project. Unfortunately the early sun changed to low cloud and temperatures dropped, but not before all the trees were planted and it was time for a warming drink. The pupils promised to keep an eye on the planting and local residents popped by to offer their support….what more could we want? Well done everyone. Lots of great photos via this link.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our thanks again to Birmingham City Council’s Woodland Team, who we rely on for ground preparation and transportation of trees and spades. We couldn’t do it without them!

Do you know where Batchelors Farm Park is?

When we rang Alston Primary School in Bordesley Green and asked them if they fancied planting trees in Batchelors Farm Park , their first question was…….where ?? Even we had to double check that we had the right location !

The park is actually very close to their school and can be entered at the bottom of Kenwood road, although we have to say that the entry gate area is not at all inviting and we hope the local Councillors see our post and try and do something to mitigate this issue. The pupils were shocked at the amount of dumped waste that had obviously had been there for a long time. Much had also been on fire at some stage.

Once you enter this park, known locally as part of Bordesley Green Recreation Ground, the view is entirely different with lots of beautiful semi woodland areas flanking the railway line and shielding houses from noise.

Today some of the school’s ECO group planted 5 large trees, to spread the wooded area, and used those trees to protect 100 smaller saplings planted inside their boundary area. We hope these will grow into another small woodland coppice area in time. Our thanks to the 6 pupils from Alston Primary who, with their staff, worked very hard to do all this work in an hour! You can follow their efforts via this link.