Now that Protect Earth has been planting at sites for a few years, we are starting to get back to our roots (if you’ll pardon the pun), revisiting some of our very first projects that are 2-3 years old to review progress.
Bubbenhall is just one such example. It was a project very early on in Protect Earth’s history that we revisited this October as a chance to check in on the landowners’ new woodlands and restock trees that have perished.
Planting in Bubbenhall, West Midlands, 2021
Bubbenhall is a beautiful little village with a population of only 655. It’s in Warwickshire in the West Midlands.
It was December 2021, A few miles outside of the village, and the Protect Earth team found ourselves where we often find ourselves - in a field soon to be filled with trees! We planted around 2,500 trees with some hedgerows. Hedgerows benefit landowners (a farmer in this case) and wildlife. In addition to the trees and hedgerows, we also planted a 1 acre wildflower meadow.
In the diversified environment in which plants and animals live, replacing only one thing isn’t enough. Only planting trees means that some vital small animals and insects will never appear where one might hope, and the woodland will not develop the biodiversity we all benefit from. The additional hedgerows and wildflower meadows, in combination with the trees, are a biodiversity bomb with immediate effect!
What was planted is equivalent to approximately three acres, enough growth to boost the farm’s biodiversity, directly increasing the farm’s turnover.
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Bubbenhall habitat development at a glance Where: Warwickshire, West Midlands, UK When started: 2021 What planted: 1-acre wildflower meadow, roughly 2 acres of woodland and hedging (2,500 saplings in 2021 and restocking of 400 plants in 2023) How many days planting: 3 days for the initial 2,500 plants and one day for restocking [/caption]
Returning to Bubbenhall in 2023
Returning to growing woodlands we started is always exciting. Protect Earth partners with great people as passionate about habitat and biodiversity development as we are. Our partners fast become friends, and returning to sites provides an opportunity to catch up. It’s also rewarding to see how healthy sites have grown.
And, by and large, sites succeed. But with every success story, there is also attrition. As much as returning to Bubbenhall was to check on woodland progress, it was also to restock lost species. Naturally, some plants don’t mature. Steve the Ecologist is a cracker when it comes to matching the right tree to the right place.
Over two days close to the end of October, we restocked the site’s growing woodland with 400 trees replacing what hadn’t survived. We planted Hornbeam, Hazel, Aspen, Wild Cherry, Oak, Great Willow, Rowan, and Small-leaf Lime.
During the planting, we were joined by 16 volunteers from the local area who stuck in and made speedy work of it all, giving us time to get to know them! Having people volunteer always makes the day go faster - not just because more hands are planting but also for their company and the stories of why it’s important to them to volunteer and share their time with us.
To sum up
We are delighted with the progress of this partnership and the development of this habitat, including woodlands and its wildflower meadow.
When we form a partnership with a landholder, it is with the intention that the partnership lasts - trees are for much longer than life, not just Christmas (to paraphrase the famous reminder about pets). Protect Earth’s chief goal is to develop biodiversity and natural habitats in a meaningful way that works to reverse some of the accelerating climate change effects. This means we don’t simply support a project during the initial steps of grant applications or providing trees. We expect to become part of a project over a longer-term horizon to ensure that much-needed biodiversity can be developed.
Please get in touch with us if you have land that you feel should be converted into a natural habitat full of beautiful trees, flowers, insects, and animals. We have now partnered with landowners and managers, large and small, guiding them to make their land richer and greener.