West Vale - Uffington Gorse Work Party

Uffington Gorse was very quiet over the Christmas period, with work parties starting again on 8 January.

As part of ‘I Dig Trees’, we received a package of 50 tree whips - young trees with a single stem and no branches that’s ready to be planted. Run by an organisation called The Conservation Volunteers, ‘I Dig Trees’ is a community tree-planting project that aims to plant millions of trees to help the environment.

Most of the whips were planted in the gaps in the Moor Mill road hedge line and five elder whips were sited in clearings elsewhere in the woods to provide food for birds. Once the planting was finished, the hedging group continued with their work, while everyone else applied the remaining chippings to paths and tracks around the woods. Finally, the hung-up tree tow path barriers were put back up and the bottle pit safety fence repaired.

The main aim of our next work party was for Fiona Rivers to carry out pole saw induction training and we were joined for the occasion by others from West Vale. Fiona’s instruction was followed by familiarisation using the short pole saw around the wood to allow volunteers to become confident with the technique, before moving onto the extended version. 

After Fiona’s pole saw training, the Moor Mill hedge laying, path clearing and log edgings around the wood continued.