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It is important to plant at least one tree. They let birds and insects know that your area is a green service station. Our area was fortunate in that it already had a line of mature trees along the back border. We also had scope for extending this and creating a new mini-woodland from scratch.
The woodland area was planted mainly with Silver Birch with some Oak and Horse Chestnut intermingled amongst them. The characteristics of these are;
Silver Birch - A pretty tree with small leaves, weeping branches, silvery bark and casting a light shade. A rough texture in the young shoots usually indicates good bark colour to follow. Ultimate height is 20 metres and it has a life span of 50-60 years. Old trees are good for bracket fungi and have 229 associated insect species.
Oak - Forest size tree that needs a lot of space. Thus only a few were planted. It is a native tree that supports 284 insect species.
Horse Chestnut - A popular species that unfortunately is not a native. It, therefore, supports very few insect species. Planted mainly because it is a popular tree in the local area.
Important Criteria For Planting
- Plant trees of a small size. They should not be any taller than two metres.
- Put them in at about three meters apart. This leaves plenty of space for planting a lower layer canopy, but also means the trees will be close enough together to force one another up and produce a canopy of branches on most sites within three to four years.
- Look for a good, healthy fibrous root system and choose trees which have a good central shoot growing vigorously upwards.
- Eventually, trees planted three metres apart will become overcrowded and some will have to be cut down. Little trees don't need staking and grow so fast that they will normally overtake more expensive standard trees within the second year.
- The best time to plant is in late Autumn just after leaf fall or early Spring just before bud burst.
The trees were planted by the children in March 2001. The area was marked out with cones to give an idea of tree distribution. For each tree, a two foot circle of turf was removed and a planting hole dug. The soil was replaced back in over the tree roots and the removed turf replaced upside down. The area around each tree was then covered with bark stripping to reduce weed growth.
The trees grew very well in their first year, with only one or two not surviving. This is a credit to how well the children carried out the planting.
Second Canopy
In any woodland you will find different plant heights which form distinct layers of vegetation. These are known as canopies of vegetation. The trees planted so far will form the top canopy of the woodland. The next layer down from this will be formed from planting shrubs in amongst the trees. Once both of these have created a dense enough leaf canopy, in four to five years time, a lower canopy of carpeting woodland flowers can be established.
Creating a multi canopy enviroment is important. Firstly, it enables more species to be grown in a given area and secondly each of the layers will provide a home for different species of wildlife. If you watch closely you will see that your garden birds are quite specific about the layer in which they operate. The song thrush, the wood pigeon and the long tailed tit tend to stick to the tree tops. The finches and the robin seem to prefer the shrub layer, and wrens, dunnocks and blackbirds spend most of their time among the leaf litter or in very low vegetation.
Shrub Planting
In March 2002, the children of class three and four spent a morning planting seventy five shrubs in the woodland area as follows;
25 Guelder Rose - Produces colourful bunches of berries in the autumn. Very good food source for the birds.
25 Dogwood - Colourful shrub with eye catching stems.
25 Crab Apple - The apples are a useful food source for birds and insects in the autumn. This is particularly important to the Red Admiral butterfly.
The above were all donated to the project by the Shropshire Wildlife Trust.
The actual task of planting the shrubs was thoroughly enjoyed by all the children involved. In fact, one comment made by a child enthusiastically banging the mud off his boots was , "That's the best school day I've ever had".
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