Grant is tree-mendous news

An environmental group in Chryston has received a welcome donation to their project to help create new woodlands.

Northern Corridor community volunteers earned a £ 250 grant f rom Volunteering Matters Action Earth, allowing them to create a new growing space at their “communi- tree” nursery.

It will be used to create a new tree bed to help with the growth of its year-old saplings, helping them reach a suitable size for later moves to their future home and giving them “a much-improved chance of survival”.

The trees will form part of a new woodland which is to be created nearby, bordering Crowwood golf club and a well- used local pathway.

Volunteer and funding officer Claire Williams explained: “The saplings will spend their first couple of vulnerable years in an area where we can care for them well and ensure the very best start for them before they move to their new woodland home.

“It will be planted using fencing and natural grazing deterrents such as hawthorn and blackthorn, to reduce plastic use and also to prevent the new trees being grazed by the local roe deer population.

“Combined with the use of slightly older trees, shading techniques, soil transplants and the addition of traditional woodland floor plant species, this all has the potential to accelerate the woodland creation, increasing biodiversity and carbon sequestration capacity to combat the climate crisis and species loss.”

Explaining how important the grant will be to the project, and how the group hope to get locals involved, Claire added: “We were delighted to receive this funding for the new tree bed .

“It is a long-term project for us and we are really hoping to get lots of the local community involved.”