Arran’s healthy outdoors team open plant nursery
Over the last couple of years, Arran’s Healthy Outdoors Team (HOT) has been setting up a plant nursery, and now the team have officially seen their project begin to blossom with the planting of an oak tree.
The aim of the project is to establish a plant nursery so HOT can produce native trees and wildflowers, enabling the restoration of the native woodland in areas previously inundated with rhododendron plants.
The team has already cleared the site of brambles and salmonberry near the Ranger Centre for the nursery. With funding from the Arran Trust earlier in the year, they have had a digger in to clear old root stumps and level the site.
During the summer, the team built six raised beds, which have already been planted up with rowan seedling. A further six are due to be built during the winter ready for seedlings from birch, hawthorn and two of Arran’s three endemic tree species. As well as trees, native wildflower species will be grown, again for use across the properties to re-establish the woodland ground flora. The restoration of the woodland and its ground flora will increase the variety of wildlife able to survive in the Country Park and Goatfell.
HOT’s mission statement is; ‘conservation, exercise, well-being, healthy people and healthy places’. Since it started in early 2012, HOT has given people opportunities to improve their physical and mental health, improve the local environment, and, perhaps most importantly, have fun and make new friends.
The team meets every Tuesday, from 10am to 1pm at the NTS Ranger Centre.
Tasks involve clearing vegetation, planting, some path maintenance, weeding, fencing, building raised beds, hedge laying, and many other conservation tasks.
Everyone is welcome to join - just turn up, and invite interested family and friends.
No previous experience is needed, just wear old clothes that you don’t mind getting mucky, and suitable footwear (wellingtons, sturdy boots or shoes).
The team will provide the work gloves, tools, materials, and refreshments for a morning break.
For more information, telephone 01770302462.