It was great to be able to help Catriona Bass who owns and runs the Long Mead Wildlife Site, virtually next door to Wytham Woods, with a hedge and tree planting workshop for a group of local teachers. This was part of a project Catriona is involved with to help schools in the Eynsham Partnership Academy Trust improve the biodiversity in their school grounds.

We persuaded the totally brilliant Nigel Fisher, Conservator of Wytham Woods, to give up his morning to deliver this workshop. As is the case with every event Nigel delivers it was great fun and everyone learned a huge amount. Even with a blindfold on!

My key learning point was that bare roots cannot be left in the air for any time at all. They need to stay in the bag until the last moment. They are incredibly delicate.

A group of 15 of us practiced planting hedges and trees under Nigel’s careful guidance. We also tried identifying winter trees which was difficult! Phone apps are of limited use when all you have are some tiny buds and some bark. Nigel showed us the tells that we needed to look for.

Turns out that teachers like marsh mallows toasted over the fire almost as much as school kids. Happy days.

Next teacher training is for the University of Oxford Geography PGCE interns later in Feb. Looking forward to it.