Arbor Projects

I'm Ellie and I run Arbor Projects, which is an organisation that works with councils and housing associations. I come in and I support residents to improve their green spaces, so they can become lovely spaces for wildlife and also for the residents themselves.

Today, we are planting trees. So, we've got a community tree planting day and we are planting all the trees that The Woodland Trust has kindly donated to us. We have been working on Dawsons Heights for the last six months. And the residents were really keen to transform this space. So before it was completely overgrown and I've been working with residents to sort of clear it and we're turning it into a community forest garden. Putting in a mix of Hazel, Rowan, Elder, Willow, all sorts. Today, we've had about fifteen residents come and help plant trees. And I think we've planted about half of the trees that The Woodland Trust has provided. We're going to have another planting day another day. So, we've planted about a 100 on a big stretch of the garden which is just really brilliant.

Engaging the kids on this estate is really important. So, they're the next generation, especially if they are growing up in the city. There are a lot of opportunities to learn about nature and wildlife growing but it's harder top kind of access. So by having a space like this on their estate, right on their doorstep, its amazing. It will be a lovely space for them to be able to learn about where all the nuts come from, where all the fruits come from. We're hoping to grow lots of herbs and have insect hotels. It will just be a really great space, that will be educational but also fun, I think.

Having free trees like this from The Woodland Trust has been amazing so often these projects can get so expensive because of trying to fund the plants that we want to put in them. It saved us probably so much money. And probably is just an opportunity to create something that we wouldn't have been able to do otherwise or it might have taken us a few years to try and do.