Woodland Creation and Restoration

The Tarras Valley Longwood ancient woodlands are an incredibly special habitat with our infamous veteran oak trees which are hundreds of years old.

These wonderful old trees have their own unique ecosystem and can provide a home for hundreds of other different species like fungi, mosses, insects and birds. To really thrive, these trees need lots of space and light to keep growing to a grand old age – some ancient oaks can live for more than 1000 years!

At the moment, our stunning veterans are really crowded by younger birch trees which are blocking light, casting heavy shade and this is causing them to decline with lower branches starting to die back.

We are busy working with The Woodland Trust to plan some birch thinning over the coming year (outside of bird nesting season). This is all so that these magnificent trees get the light and space they desperately need so they can be conserved for many hundreds of years to come.

Tree Planting

We had a fantastic community tree planting day at Hallpath in February. A brilliant turnout with hundreds of native trees planted across the site, to help with the ongoing site restoration from larch plantation back to a more wildlife friendly native woodland. We planted a mix of Rowan, Aspen, Oak, Blackthorn, Bird Cherry, Hawthorn and Alder.

Since the plantation blew down during Storm Arwen it has been a huge team effort across so many organisations and individuals to help get us to where we are now and we’re really excited to see how the site starts to regenerate now we are coming into spring.