Late November/early December brings National Tree Week, the traditional start of the tree planting season. Donations towards tree planting on the Common have exceeded £12,000 since our 150th anniversary campaign began two years ago, and this season will see the climax to our planting efforts.

Following on from the nine standard trees planted at the end of November, we put in a mixture of smaller, native whips, including blackthorn, buckthorn, hawthorn, guelda rose etc as well as several gorse plants to re-establish a species that was once widespread on the Common.

This season’s planting is concentrated at the very north end of the Common - Northside - alongside the South circular, both to create habitat and to act as an anti pollution ‘green screen’, and also in the south-west corner of the Common near the Bellevue/Trinity Road junction. We also infilled the hedging planted in the St Mark’s area last season, where some species, particular grey willow, were not successful.

Enable’s biodiversity officer, Mick, astonished us by telling us that over the past year we’ve planted around 3,000 whips in these areas, alongside the 100 standard saplings financed by donations - a major achievement and no small thanks to our many donors and volunteers.

We look forward to monitoring the trees’ progress over the coming year and hope that the weather will not be as challenging for them as last year.