May the 8th.
What a great day this was; the day was lovely and sunny and we had done all the preparation ready for this major planting of 575 trees.
Cambridge East Primary School pupils all came to do a planting on the Swale in Watkins Road on Tuesday the 8th of May at 11.00 am. All 350 students plus teachers and parent helpers walked along to the Swale. After a demonstration by a Tree Trust Member, each student planted one or more trees. From the newest five-year-old student to the seniors were all spread out in groups down the length of four paddocks.
It all went like clockwork.
As a team we members measured out and marked the places where the trees were to be planted. We had a corrections team member who dug all the holes for us.
Then the team of tree trust members organized the trees, transported them to the Swale and put them by all the holes.
In one hour the children had planted all those 575 trees. Well done Cambridge East School
On the Thursday of the same week we had another corrections team who came and spread out the carpet mulch that we use between the trees to suppress the weeds and then we used leaves that had been collected from the streets of Cambridge as a topping. Then on the Saturday members again went back and staked and tied up most of those trees.
We left 3 ovals empty at that stage.
At the end of May we started the High School planting programme. This involved nine classes, nearly two each week of June. This is part of their science syllabus.
The students first came to the nursery where we had a short talk about the tree trust and then loaded up the truck with the trees and went to the designated planting are. We were fortunate with the weather as not one day got rained out.
The only day that was nearly rained off we spent the first half with a potting on session and when the rain went away we set out and each student managed to plant two trees.
It was the last group of year nine students and what a pleasure it was to work with those very enthusiastic students from the special class. There were only ten of them but they all worked very hard and planted one hundred and eighteen trees in two group plantings one on the Swale and one at the end of Oaklands and we had to cross over the swale to do that one. They even banged in all the stakes and tied the trees up too.
We need to say, thank you to all those people who helped with the supervision on these planting days, without your help we could not have achieved what we did.
A few mornings were very frosty and we thought they would be very cold but the situation we planted in was on the north facing site below Lumb Park above the river so it was very warm when we got down there and everyone was stripping of jerseys as soon as we started work.
Since March the Tuesday planting team has been superb. At times ten or twelve people have gathered at the nursery at nine am to load up the truck with trees and wheelbarrows and spades and fertilizer and stakes and set of for two and a half hours of work.
We have not had one Tuesday rained off so we have got through a great deal of planting, staking and mulching.
The main projects have been the Watkins Road Swale, the Oakland's inside boundary, and the Loop Track off Poet’s Track, below Lumb Park and Cook Street riverbank edging. We still have a lot of work in both the last two places, to finish to the standard we require.
Pope Terrace planting is growing nicely now. We had four sessions on it this year to get in enough of the low growing plants to hold the bank stable. We did lose about 15 plants early on this year to theft and some of last years plants did not cope with the dry conditions so we replaced a few. The view of the town and the bridge and the river will not be hindered by the planting.
There have been some trees hit badly by the exceptionally heavy frost we had in early June but this is just part of the risk we take when planting out in the open field of the Swale, so when early spring comes we will go back and put in the replacements that we have for just this mishap.
This year we have had many corrections teams again doing valuable work in the preparation of planting areas and the mulching work after planting. Without their labour we would not achieve the amount of replanting that we do.
Our nursery is looking slightly depleted as we have taken out 4845 plants by the 3rd of July. It is amazing to see them go and now to make plans for the future.
If there is anyone out there with ideas that will improve the Cambridge environment please forward them to us or contact the chairman Brian Mayo.
