📍 Workington, Lake District
Sally Phillips bought Low Fell in the Lake District through her company Buy Land Plant Trees. The land sits above Loweswater on the western fringes of the Lakes and has a summit just under 1,400ft (427m).
A woodland has been created and about 275,000 trees have been planted so far, with a patchwork of different habitat types. Protect Earth contributed 10,000 trees to the effort after other funding sources dried up.
Goat Willow
Rowan
Wild Cherry
Bird Cherry
Hawthorn
Hazel
Alder
Downy Birch
Sessile Oak
Crab Apple
Silver Birch
Holly
Aspen
The Restoring Hardknott Forest team checked them after the earlier drought, and most of the trees were fine. There was some drought shock, but a lot of them have been re-growing from from the roots in previous years and there’s reason to believe these few that were struggling will do the same. Most of them were fine, but with the bracken so high in summer checks will need to be done in early Spring.
Phil went for a wander around fighting through bracken and can confirm. It was impossible to find anything in this huge valley, and getting around it was even harder, so with two long wet feet Phil wandered off to come back and search another day.
The team actually popped back a few weeks later and said: There were around 5 dead cell-grown aspen that had been planted in the grass, which evidently dried out more than the bracken area. These were the only dead trees we saw. Others that had been drought stressed and dropped their leaves still had live stems, and a number had sprouted new growth from the base.”
Help us create and maintain new woodlands, hedgerows and wildflower meadows! We need volunteers to sow seeds, plant saplings, clear invasive plant species and pick up litter. No qualifications necessary; jobs for all ages and abilities. Come and turn climate anxiety into climate action!
Upcoming Events →With government funding for reforestation and rewilding tenuous, we increasingly rely on our amazing community to keep us growing regardless of political shifts. Help Protect Earth continue to restore ecosystems and improve biodiversity across the country:
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