Community Seed Collection events: Forustree CTN October 19th, Yorkshire (part 1).
This final community seed collection event for the project was held at Centre Vale Park in Todmorden, West Yorkshire.
This is part one of a two part post. The second part of this post is connected to the short film that has been produced for the event and will be published in January.
This third and final seed collection event took place in the beautiful Centre Vale Park in the town of Todmorden, West Yorkshire. The site was chosen because of it’s central, accessible location and because of the good variety of suitable trees for seed collection. Plus, the community group ‘Friends of Centre Vale Park’ were helpful in terms of providing information about the park and the trees.
Christina Hooley from the CTN Forustree who facilitated the event, also explained that there was a book about the trees in the park ‘Stories of Centre Vale Trees’ by two of the volunteers from the group: Philip Marshall and Sarah Pennie. So it was decided that this location had to a lot to offer not only in terms of seed collection but also in terms of the community connections with the place.
Forustree
Forustree is one of the core group members of the Community Tree Nursery Collaborative (or CTNC) which the Fellowship of the Trees has facilitated for a few years now. Forustree have a well established CTN as part of their overall work, in a rural part of West Yorkshire at Daisy Bank above the village of Mytholmroyd.
They are based in one of the Growing Diversity Project’s key tree provenance zones that has been prioritised to support which is 302. They have a strong capacity for involving local people through their work including a weekly volunteering day, on Fridays, at their CTN. They are a worker’s co-operative and Social Enterprise whose key focus is on the Calder Valley and surrounding area. They also have over 20 years experience of tree planting and they state:
Our aim is to mitigate the effects of climate change and restore biodiversity in the Calder valley and beyond. We will achieve this through planting, managing and protecting woodland, wildflower and wildlife habitats.1
They sell both bare root and cell grown trees that have been grown from locally sourced seeds and are registered with the Forestry Commission as FRM (Forestry Reproductive Materials) suppliers. They are also accredited as a supplier for the Woodland Trust’s UK and Ireland Sourced and Grown (UKISG) Assurance Scheme.
One of the key sustainable factors about how the CTN grows their trees is that they are watered from a natural spring from the moors. They are grown in an exposed position, open to the elements and situated 180 metres above sea level, which all helps the young trees to develop well.
Together with growing trees, Forustree offer a range of other services such as tree planting, hedging, river clearance and erosion control.
Since January 2020, we have hand planted over 43,000 trees.2
This tree planting has been part of their own projects and also on behalf of organisations including Treesponsibility and Mersey Forest.
Christina and Mischa from Forustree were involved in the seed collection day and did a wonderful job of organising and supporting those who attended.
To reach out and find out more about the wonderful work they do, please click here.
Centre Vale Park
Centre Vale Park is located in Todmorden, a market town in the Upper Calder Valley in Calderdale. It comprises of 33 hectares of mature Oak and Beech woodland with woodland walks and open parkland.
As mentioned above, the park is easily accessible with six pedestrian entrances around the main park area. The town centre, bus and railway stations are a short walk away.
There is parking to the West of the park adjacent to the Sports/Leisure Centre. Toilets and other facilities are also available in the park. So this is makes it a very volunteer friendly location for a community seed collection event.
Reflections and outcomes
It was dry and calm for the event, with a good number of volunteers who really enjoyed the day. (More on this in the film linked to part 2 of this post).
There were two other tree related events going on at the same time in the park, together with other leisure events, so it was a busy day for the park!
A media permit and permission was obtained in advance of the event from the local council for filming on the site (this is worth looking into, if you wish to film as there are certain rules about filming on public and also private property).
The session started with a safety briefing and also an introduction to Tree ID and in particular the specific tree species being collected from. Together with explaining why these species are important and the contribution the participants would be making to increasing the collection of such seeds in the local area.
Seeds were collected from: Small-leaved Lime, Guelder rose, a small but useful amount of Yew berries, Spindle and Holly. All of these species are classed as difficult to grow and have low seed availability in the area.
It can be tricky to identify Small-leaved Lime and to distinguish it from Large leaf and Common Lime. Mischa from Forustree had done a lot of research and discovered that the colour and distribution of hairs on the back of the leaves are a key identifying feature. Mischa had purchased some little magnifying lenses and people were able to use these in learning how to identify this particular species of tree.
All seeds were stratified and will be grown at the Daisy Bank CTN in Mytholmroyd and will be planted in the valley as part of Forustree’s natural flood management, woodland creation and hedging projects in upcoming years.
Equipment used on the day included berry pickers which had been purchased for such seed collection and also hooked sticks which Mischa had designed. (You can see these innovative seed pickers in action in the film, which will be in part 2 of this post).
Further photos will be shared in the next post.
Several attendees have indicated to Forustree that they would be interested in supporting the CTN on Fridays and would like to help out in the future at similar events. People of all ages were involved in the event. There were many smiling faces in the sunshine as seeds were collected throughout the day.
It was really helpful to have the support of the Friends of Centre Vale Park involved in the event and we are grateful to Philip Marshall for his input into the film (in part 2 of this post).
Below are a few lovely comments from people involved including Christina from Forustree.
We really enjoyed collecting the seeds, the girls got really involved, learning about which trees we would be collecting from and reaching with the grabbers to get the seeds.' (Caroline, attendee who participated along with her husband and two daughters).
On Saturday I spent the day volunteering with @forus_tree collecting tree seeds in Tod park. Part of a collaborative project supported by @woodlandtrust and @fellowshipofthetreescic to diversify the tree species grown in local community tree nurseries. We collected Guelder Rose, Yew, Holly, Small Leafed Lime and Spindle seeds. THOROUGHLY enjoyed my time spent in the fellowship of these tree kin and learning so much about them and the needs of their seeds. (Rachel Hawthorn, attendee).
Being asked to host this seed collecting event by the Growing Diversity Project was a great opportunity for us. We would not have had the confidence to do it with out the support of the project. It prompted a new way of learning about how to identify the priority trees especially small leaved lime. We had a great day, enjoyed the challenge and met lots of new volunteers. (Christina Hooley, Forustree).
Please do let us know if you have had any experience of collecting seeds from any of the species referred to in the post or any comments in relation to this event.
We would like to share our good wishes for the festive season to all and I will return with part 2 of this post including a link to the film of the Centre Vale park event in January!
Hilary Campbell
Growing Diversity Project Coordinator.
https://www.forustree.org/?page_id=24
https://www.forustree.org/?page_id=36