New Hedges on the Heath
Throughout the last couple of months, we’ve been busy planting several new hedges across the Heath. With help from our regular Heath Hands Volunteers, corporate groups, youth volunteers, and students from a local SEND school, we’ve managed to plant around 500 trees, creating over 60 metres of new hedgerows.
The project has been generously supported by The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), whose funding enabled Heath Hands to purchase the trees for the project.
We’ve focused on improving areas around Parliament Hill, for example, planting a hedge near the Parliament Hill paddling pool. This is in an area that we have have been focusing on with our conservation work as a new wildlife corridor to nearby streets and green spaces, improving habitats for species such as hedgehogs and sparrows.
We planted a range of native species including field maple, dogwood, yew, holly, hawthorn, juniper and hazel – all species that thrive in a hedgerow environment. Currently they don’t look like much, but within a few years, the hedges will start to take shape.
We’ve also conducted some hedge restoration, filling in gaps in existing hedges around the Parliament Hill area. Hedgerows are fantastic habitats, providing shelter and food for a great variety of wildlife. Often described as ‘habitat corridors', hedges provide a sheltered route for species to move through the landscape, provide a vital source of food and nectar, and a place for birds to nest. Some of our hedges have been damaged by people accessing them or through trees dying, so restoring hedges to maintain quality habitats is an important conservation task!
Planting young trees to fill in gaps in existing hedges
In addition to boosting biodiversity and increasing and restoring hedgerow habitat, an aim of our project has been to involve the community and, in particular, young people in the hedge planting. This provides an opportunity to talk about the importance of hedgerows, as well as giving local young people the chance to see ‘their’ hedge grow over the next few years, giving them a sense of connection to their local green spaces.
55 young people from 4 local schools, two mainstream and two SEND, have been involved in our planting project.
Students planting their first trees
Working with a special needs school
Planting a holly hedge in the Secret Garden
Finally, we have also made use of some of our new hedges in their role as boundaries and screens: the Secret Garden is a space used for educational visits to the Heath, led by the City’s education team.
Corporate volunteers helped us to plant a new holly hedge along the edge of the garden which borders residential flats and the back of a restaurant. Hopefully, as well as providing new wildlife habitat on the edges of the Heath, this will soon begin to provide some privacy to the groups that use the space, as well as to the residents in the building.
If you’re on a walk, why not pop into our Nature Interpretation Centre to pick up a free spotter sheet to help identify some typical hedgerow trees?
