Happy New Year! Do you want to plant trees with us in 2025?
Blwyddyn Newydd Dda! Happy New Year! We’d like to wish you a joyful, healthy, fruitful and fulfilling 2025. As the bells ring on a new year, we all start thinking to positive changes, actions and affirmations we can make for the new year. Well, what better one than planting trees?
Community Tree Planting Day 2024 (image credit: Jason @ A Great Alternative)
Planting a tree is a powerful symbol. It’s a positive, restorative act that we can all take in service to future generations - ‘The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now’ goes the old Japanese proverb. It’s such a powerful symbol of ecological thinking and regenerative actions that we even chose a young tree as our namesake, a symbol to define Glasbren.
We have plans to plant thousands of trees at Parc yr Arglwydd | Lords Park farm in the coming years, for wildlife, habitat, carbon sequestration, for food, fuel and medicine, and as shelter from the brutal winds that hit us here on the coast.
Last year we had such a memorable day, as over 30 people came, in the early months of our tenure here at this 134-acre, clifftop National Trust farm above the Three Rivers Estuary, to plant trees on a foggy, wet February day. We planted over 70 apple and pear trees to begin a Community Orchard, as well as hundreds of native trees throughout the farm.
Not only is it incredible to witness how much can be achieved by a big group of willing folks in a really short space of time, but how much power we have as a group - to take steps to secure our own food future, to regenerate our local lands, to, at once, nourish ourselves and the earth simultaneously. Yes, we’re planting tree for their environmental benefits, and for their usefulness for food, fuel, materials, medicine and shelter. But last year also showed us that planting trees can be a powerful way for us to bring the community together in positive, restorative purpose. It’s a vehicle for community-scale ecosystem restoration, for working together for food sovereignty and to secure a vital community resource and for joy, fun and all the good feels on a rainy Saturday in February!
Would you like to join us this year?
For our first gathering of 2025, and to celebrate the arrival of Spring on Imbolc, we welcome you for a day of planting trees! We’ll be planting more fruit trees in our Community Orchard, some of which were dedicated through our Crowdfunder campaign in 2024, as well as hundreds of native tree saplings.
As ever, we’ll be having a bring-and-share lunch, so please do bring a dish for the lunch table. Vegan-friendly dishes are encouraged to ensure that the spread suits everybody! We’ll have lunch around 12.30pm. We’ll provide refreshments through the day and everything else you might need, including mugs, plates and cutlery. As we turn towards Winter, waterproofs and sturdy footwear is strongly recommended!
If you have a tree-planting spade, or any narrow spade, we’d really appreciate it if you could bring along. No experience is necessary - we’ll give a full how-to briefing when you arrive - but if those of you with experience could let us know, that’d be great!
We hope to see you there! Please do get in touch if you have questions about access, facilities or anything else related to our Community Tree Planting day.
If you aren’t able to join us on 1st February to plant trees, there’ll likely be tree planting happening throughout February on our weekly volunteer days, every Thursday from Thursday 6th February 2025. Equally, you can support the planting of trees on the land here by becoming a farm supporter, for just £5 per month.
