Our innovative approach to planting is supported by unique dibbing tools, which we designed and built ourselves to facilitate the fast, effective, and accurate planting of sometimes more than 1,000 whips per day, ensuring they are suitably weatherproof and more likely to reach maturity.
Our planting crew consists of special educational needs students from Market Field College in Clacton-on-Sea. We have a pool of seven students on a full commercial wage working to a rota, with a team leader with duty of care responsibility. Their work ethic and standard of work is fantastic, and we plan to create additional planting and mulching crews to support the planting operations.
Even in a ‘normal’ year Essex can be dry, so we use use more than half a million litres of mulch every winter. Derived from garden waste collected and composted by local councils, it helps retain moisture and suppress weeds, minimising losses and ensuring as many trees as possible reach maturity.
We feel it’s untenable to plant hedgerows using non-biodegradable plastic guards. Following trials we now exclusively use Grown Green organic and biodegradable tree (whip) guards.
We are not aware of any fully organic biodegradable 1.2m tree shelters available – most are made from organic plastics with limited biodegradability. Rather than leave (degrading) guards in place, we proactively remove them after 3 to 4 years.
We are planting one million hedgerow whips – more than one hundred miles – in the district of Tendring, Essex.
It’s important to preserve the DNA of our ancient fruit trees. We are planting heritage fruit trees from The East of England Apples and Orchard project.
A specialist area of the School of Life Sciences is the study of mycorrhiza (symbiotic relationships between plants and fungi). Funded by The Big Green Internet, this research will provide valuable insight into the long-term success of our projects.