As long ago as 2010, students and staff planted around 100 trees in the newly created biodiversity reserve on the northern perimeter of the college campus. This area is now a wild habitat with many of the trees flourishing alongside naturally seeded trees from nearby hedges. More recently, there have been several projects aimed at increasing biodiversity across the wider Surrenden campus, notably several areas of tree planting and a wildlife corridor of grasses and flower meadow between the schools. On our own campus, there is also now an eco-garden that was created as part of the planning application for the STEM Centre.
So it is against this background that staff and students are currently involved in more tree planting along the south-west perimeter with Surrenden road near the bus stop. Over 100 tree saplings were sourced from the Woodland Trust and have now been successfully planted. A further 300 tree saplings are to follow, with planting of these taking place over the next few months. Four tree species that were sourced and now on the campus grounds are: sesile oak, birch, blackthorn and hawthorn. Great care was taken to plant them with a mix of seaweed meal compost in well-watered holes. Hopefully these trees will flourish and we can watch them grow over the next few years. Students from the Climate and Environment enrichment group led by Mark Halliwell, as well as the Environmental Sustainability class, helped out with the planting ably assisted by some members of staff. A special thank you to our resident science technician, Sue Craske, who worked extremely hard on the planting; sourcing some of the much-needed compost. She was also able to advise our students about effective tree-planting in her capacity as a landscape gardener and her work in horticulture.
