Game of thorns

Congratulations to the tree-mendous group of GoodGymers who came to Ockwells to plant trees this morning. The weather forecast was grim, but that didn't deter us. In fact, we even had a few newcomers sign up at the last minute: tree cheers and a wet and muddy welcome for Jo, Peter and Clara!

This was our 5th tree-planting session at Ockwells this season, so many of the group already knew the drill - gather up the spades, mallets and tree guards, squelch squerch through the mud to the planting site (the 'motorway gap' today rather than New Thrift Wood site inside the deer fence), locate the heeled in whips and supportive stakes, and get planting!

Thanks to Georgeta for her expert demonstration of how to give these little tree babies the best possible start without things getting too thorny.

As always we settled into a happy rhythm, digging, chatting, planting and staking. Today's species included hawthorn, field maple, hazel, alder, and buckthorn, a native mix selected to provide a 'soft but prickly' woodland edge, extending the existing woodland towards the path.

As I called 5 minutes to go, Kevin raised the stakes - he noticed we didn't have many left and challenged us to use them all up before heading back. Game on! 10 pairs of hands made light work of another 25 trees, and we even had time for a group photo. At this moment the heavens really opened. We tried our best to look miserable in the photo, but the truth is we had a tree-rific time.

160 trees planted today takes GoodGym to a grand total of 735 so far this year. I wonder if we can make it to 1000!? You can sign up to join us on another session by clicking here. As well as tree planting we have fence painting, fridge cleaning, waterways weeding, donation sorting and parkrun marshalling all planned for this month, and more listings still to come. Happy New Year!