Green Week??!

Somewhere I heard or saw on the internet that the 9th-15th February is Green Week.  It jogged my memory to have a look on The Woodland Trust website to see what their contribution was...of course it turned out it wasn't "green week "in their world....perhaps that's because their world is always green? 

While I was mooching about their website I started reading up on the support they offer to people wanting to create a woodland project, they might be able to help us get started with replanting trees and reinstating the hedges on our little patch.  With lots of information and not much time to read it all in my lunch break I sent them off a quick email outlining our project.

Minutes later I received a reply!

Dear Lara

Thank you for your recent woodland creation enquiry. I hope you will find the information below useful - I’d be happy to chat through anything you’re unsure about. We are currently offering advice and guidance on woodland creation to individual landowners though our MOREwoods project, which I’ve outlined below. We can also advise on applying for more generous funding through the Welsh Government.

Through our MOREwoods scheme we are offering guidance and support on woodland creation, and we also have a small pot of money available. We offer onsite advice as part of this project so an adviser (from the Woodland Trust or one of our partners) can discuss species mixes for your site in person. In order to apply for MOREwoods you need to have a minimum of 0.5 ha (1.25 acres) of non-wooded land that you would like to plant and be willing to plant between 1000 and 1600 trees per hectare.

We also have funding available for landowners who wish to create ecological links to woodland by planting new hedgerows on their land through our Trees in Hedgerows (TiH) scheme. To qualify the new hedge must link with areas of existing or newly planted woodland. You will need to plant at least 100 metres of new hedgerow, up to a maximum of 750 metres per applicant. We are offering a subsidy of 60% against the total cost of the plants and guards, but cannot arrange or fund fencing or contractors for hedging.

The alternative would be to apply for the next EU-funded grant scheme from the Welsh Government who have invited expressions of interest for planting of at least 0.5 ha. It  has also been announced that they expect to offer a parallel scheme for smaller scale planting such as small copses, shelter belts, field boundaries, field corners and scattered individual trees. The new grants have not yet been finalised and the scheme is unlikely to be available until the 2015 – 16 planting season. Our advisors will be able to provide further information. 

For small scale planting on agricultural land in Wales we can supply trees through our Farm Tree Pack scheme. These packs are supplied with guards and are subsidised to around a third of the nursery price, although due to demand we can only provide a maximum of 2 packs per person per season. We have three types of pack available for you to apply for, with a higher land species mix available for land more than 150 m (500 ft.) above sea level:

Native Tree Belt (210 trees)

Sessile oak, wild cherry, downy birch, rowan, hazel and hawthorn (supplied without cherry for higher land)

Wood Pasture (20 trees) 

       Sessile oak, common lime and beech (lowland); sessile oak, downy birch and rowan (higher land)

       Planting for Pollinators (210 trees)

       Hawthorn, blackthorn, goat willow, crab apple, rowan, hazel and dog rose (lowland and higher land)

So that we can identify the potential planting area and suggest the best source for funding for your land please could you answer the following questions:

• What’s your motivation for creating new woodland? (e.g. wildlife habitat, fuel)
• How is the land currently managed? (e.g. mown grass, grazing land, scrubland)
• Are then any services (e.g. power lines, gas pipes) passing through or adjacent to the site?
• Is there any other woodland close to the site?
• Are there deer in the area?

Please can you also send two maps and we will be able to advise on the next steps when you get back to us with a bit more detail on your plans.

  

If you have any questions about MOREwoods, grant funding or woodland creation please do let me know.

Kind regards, Woodland Creation Project Officer

How exciting!  A lovely email with some great information to get us started, giving me a warm feeling to know we will be able to get access to knowledge and possibly financial support for our project.  The best option for us would probably be to show an expression of interest in the small scale planting scheme that the Welsh Government are looking into setting up.  We had better start thinking about putting a plan together.

We have a busy time ahead as Ian is due back to finish off the first stage of fencing, we have a real deadline now with spring on its way and (to help with the grass management) 4 ponies arriving!

Oh and I did a bit more digging, it IS Go Green Week for People & Planet! (had to be somewhere!)