New Wildlife Hedge Planted!

Well the storms this weekend meant the weather outside was certainly not ‘delightful’ for The Howe Trust’s hedge planting day, but we both accomplished our mission and had a great time!

Our band of plucky volunteers, together with our Duke of Edinburgh students from Wheatley Park School, and help from the Oxford Conservation Volunteers group and students from The Oxford University Nature Conservation Society soldiered on and planted over 500 mixed native saplings.

Fuelled by plenty of tea and homemade biscuits we dug, planted and mulched through the day to create almost 120m of new hedgerow.

This new hedgeline runs downhill along a fence in the centre of The Howe and will join up 2 woodland areas on our land. As it grows, the hedge will create a new wildlife corridor – a vital feature which provides valuable protection from predators (such as red kites and foxes) for the smaller animals to help them safely move around the land. It will also boost our habitat and create more opportunities for nesting and feeding for lots of species of wildlife that live here on The Howe.

Hedges are amazing for wildlife but did you know that planting them has other benefits too?

Hedges can also help reduce the risk of flooding by intercepting rainfall. They soak up air pollutants from traffic and other sources too. Furthermore, hedgerows are being recognised for their role in alleviating climate change by capturing carbon dioxide and storing it as carbon in woody growth, roots, leaf litter and soil organic matter beneath the ground (also known as carbon sequestration).

We’re really looking forward to seeing our birds, insects and small mammal populations increase as our new hedge grows in the next few years.

In addition to recognising the hard work of our many volunteers yesterday, we’d also like to send a huge thank you to the very special charity, TCV and their ‘I Dig Trees’ initiative. They supplied all of the bare-root saplings, canes and guards for free – and so made it all possible.

Don’t forget, if you’d like to get involved and help us on The Howe then we’d love to hear from you!

900 1200 Maggie Fyffe

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