Around 300m of new native hedges were planted in the Hareshowe fields at Aden Country Park at the start of November.
This was a partnership project between several Aberdeenshire Council Departments and North East Scotland Biodiversity Partnership – NESBiP. Environment Team planners Emma Williams and Peter Fraser coordinated the project and sought approval from the Museums Service, who look after Hareshowe Farm. 1800 plants of native tree species were provided by the Woodland Trust and the Aden grounds team from Landscape Services removed the existing fences, rotavated the ground and added a layer of compost in readiness for planting the hedge.
Doug Gooday, the Buchan Ranger, Abbie Ferrar from NESBiP and Neil Shirran – Aden Project Coordinator- arranged the publicity and logistics of the planting day and volunteers from the local area and Mintlaw Men’s Shed helped us with the planting.
Over the course of two days around 1800 trees were planted to create two new hedgerows. The species planted were mostly hawthorn, enriched with hazel, holly. blackthorn, rowan, dog rose and crab apple. The rowans will be allowed to grow as standards.
Hedges, although a man-made habitat, are vital for creating habitat networks, allowing species to move between blocks of woodland, providing refuge and nesting sites, flowers for pollinators in spring and berries for food in autumn and winter.
The hedges will be managed for wildlife and therefore the trees will be allowed to grow for several years between cuts so that they produce flowers and berries. We hope to use the site as a demonstration project to illustrate hedge planting and management to benefit wildlife.
The Woodland Trust funding is annual and is targeted to allow hedge planting to join up woodland blocks so if anyone has any Council or Community sites that they think might benefit they could give the Environment Team a shout to discuss.
Thanks to all involved and to Abbie for arranging the publicity and event booking, taking lots of photos and for making this video of the planting day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpTjy1SOfSs