Queens Green Canopy Joint Club Project

Rotary Clubs across Derby joined forces with National Trust, Derby City Council and local businesses to plant 840 trees, with more to come.

ROTARY CLUBS WORKING TOGETHER

The four Rotary Clubs of Derby selected The Queen’s Green Canopy - ‘Plant a Tree for the Jubilee ‘ as their 2022 project to work with business and schools .This unique tree planting initiative invited people across the UK to plant a tree to mark her now late Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee. By focusing on planting sustainably, the Queens Green Canopy project will benefit future generations

This project, offered by the four Rotary clubs - Derby , Derby Daybreak , Derby South and Derby Mercia -, provided small businesses the opportunity to assist with their corporate and social responsibility goals, help to improve leadership and project management skills and provide a team building exercise.

We at Rotary approached the Woodland Trust to secure packs of free saplings generously funded by lead partners - Sainsbury’s, Lloyds Bank , Ovo Energy , DFS , People’s Postcode Lottery , Joules , Bank of Scotland and Sofolgy. Orders were placed for two lots of 420 packs of sapling. 420 saplings land size equates to a football pitch or 85-100 metres of double-row hedge.

The species offered were -

Urban Trees - easy to manage , designed for residential areas and to survive in urban environments .

crab apple , rowan and hazel

Wildlife - establish food and shelter for wildlife plus create a living legacy for future generations .

hawthorn , rowan, blackthorn, silver birch , hazel and common oak

Working wood - able to fuel a log burner in 7-10 years or channel creativity via carving or weaving willow.

rowan , silver birch , wild cherry , common oak, grey willow

All year round colour for beautiful blossoms , bright berries and stunning Autumn displays.

hawthorn, dogwood , wild cherry , silver birch , rowan and hazel

Rotary worked with the National Trust and Derby City Council to source and agree sites for the planting. Rotary also working directly with two inner city schools and have secured a third 420 pack of saplings to be planted at these schools.

NATIONAL TRUST Grid Reference SK 366217

The National Trust site selected was Caseys plantation at Calke Abbey .This is a newly created five hectare local grown native species woodland planted in 2018-19 .It has a new permissive walk through the plantation that links to the existing public footpath and beyond to the Calke Tramway Trail. The 420 saplings, one pack from each species, were selected to provide a hedge to protect trees from grazing livestock

Tubing the saplings was necessary in order to protect them from the deer. For the first time Calke Abbey wanted to trial biodegradable tubes to replace the use of plastic tubes. So for the first time the 420 saplings we planted were tubed using the new biodegradable tubes. A step forward for the environment.

DERBY CITY COUNCIL Grid Reference SK3211358

Derby City Council wished to extend the wooded area at Mackworth Park between Osterley Green and Peckham Gardens. Their selection was all year round colour, wild wood and a double pack of working wood. They had cleared the area of blackthorn so for sure had no desire to plant this species .They did not need to use guards .

TEAM WORKING

Patterson Commercial Law based in Leicestershire and Arthurce a Loughborough based civil engineering company embraced the challenge to each form a team and use the sapling planting as a day team building day .At the pre planning meeting ,however,the decision was made to merge the two teams into one and each company have two days of team building .This approach enabled more employees to participate and to work with team members from inside and outside their own companies.

Sapling planting took place in November 2022 with a day at each site .We were blessed with the weather on both days - no rain and even some winter sun .Equipment and training was provided at both sites by Derby City Council and by the National Trust .Planting took place at the Mackworth site first and the skills picked up there helped at Calke, although at the latter there was the learning of the additional skill of installing the biodegradable tubes.

On each day a team of Rotarians plus a couple of representatives from the Derby City Council and Calke were present to to join in with the challenge

Everyone thoroughly enjoyed both days, learnt some new skills, fulfilled corporate goals of leadership and team building and felt a sense of achievement as they looked back at the 840 saplings now ready to grow and flourish over the decades to benefit the next generations.

Many thanks to Derby City Council, The National Trust, Patterson Commercial Law and Arthurce for making this possible.

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Rotary Clubs across Derby joined forces with National Trust, Derby City Council and local businesses to plant 840 trees, with more to come.

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Queens Green Canopy Joint Club Project

Rotary Clubs across Derby joined forces with National Trust, Derby City Council and local businesses to plant 840 trees, with more to come.

Contact Pat Zadora about this page:

Would you like to support us as a volunteer?

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