Silk Wood panels audio description - positive planning at Westonbirt Arboretum

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A large forestry machine called a mulcher churns up vegetation on the ground leaving behind brown soil.

Positive planning

Community participants are helping us plant 9,000 new trees in this area.

200 pupils from Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Bristol took part in woodland design workshops. Sessions started with the basics – what is a tree, how does it work and what do we mean by forestry? The drawings and discussions that followed have been used to create the path layout you see here now.

Healthy standing trees and shrubs have been retained. Now these and the new trees don’t have to fight for resources, they have a much better chance of survival.

We held our first tree planting day in November 2023.

Leaving this land fallow for two years resulted in excessive growth of plants, including dense thickets of brambles. In late 2023 we used a forestry mulcher to clear the first area. This made it possible for community groups to access the woodland. Elsewhere we leave the soil intact as is best practice.