It’s the tree planting season again!

At this time of year trees are ready to take a rest, so now’s the time to get out your spades and wellies, and get ready to get planting. Last year’s tree planting season was a great success, and we hope to see plenty of new faces at this year’s events:

Burngreave Community Forestry has worked with the ‘Friends of Burngreave Cemetery’ for five years. Together we have established an avenue of oak trees, an avenue of 29 small leaved limes and planted a cedar of Lebanon and a walnut.

Last season we planted a flowering wild cherry avenue, to the south west side of the site. This November we will be continuing the line of the cherry tree avenue towards the chapel by planting a further 16 heavy standards. This will form a striking feature in years to come and complement the work the Friends are doing to plant up the two beds in front of the chapel with colourful spring bulbs.

We would like to invite you to join us for this year’s planting on Sunday November 30th between 12pm and 2pm. All are welcome!

Following the great work done by Green City Action and Hope 08 to clear the pathways and steps at Burngreave Recreation Ground and as the first stage of the Burngreave Rec Masterplan we will be planting eight trees surrounding the football pitch on November 11th at 10.45am with pupils from Byron Wood School.

These include a paper birch (betula papyrifera) also known as the canoe birch (the waterproof bark was used to make canoes by the Native Americans); a river birch (betula nigra), which has a great flaky, cinnamon coloured bark and three cherry species which will flower right through from November to April – providing a welcome sight on a bleak winter’s day.

mulberry trees by the allotments on Grimesthorpe Road. Before the road improvements, this sunny bank produced lots of soft fruit and people helped themselves.

In conjunction with Green City Action and local residents we hope to establish the bank as a Forest Garden – a selfmaintaining area where fruit, nuts, berries, herbs and self-seeding plants provide an edible garden for seven months of the year.

We will be having further events over the next few months to develop this project.

Burngreave Trees for Free is offering fruit trees again this season for residents interested in growing food at home. A fruit tree could provide you with delicious and nutritious fruit, fulfilling some of your required 5-a-day portions for much of the year, making for a healthier lifestyle for you and your family, and all for free!

Please note Burngreave Trees for Free is only available to residents of Burngreave.

These activities are open to all. Please contact the Community Foresters for Burngreave to get involved:

Leonie Kapadia on 0114 2736199 or Leonie.Kapadia@Sheffield.gov.uk or

Tim Shortland on 0114 2734190 or Tim.Shortland@Sheffield.gov.uk