Tree planting effort is taking root

Buy photos » Managing director Duncan Sharkey (centre) braved the drop in temperatures and joined city council staff in planting new trees on Pitchcroft. (s)

EFFORTS to make parts of the city greener are beginning to take root.

Worcester City Council managing director Duncan Sharkey joined council staff in planting lime trees in Pitchcroft Park to line the footpath and cycle ways which surround it.

They will compliment the ten other limes which were planted last year and are already thriving.

The council has teamed up with national charity Trees for Cities for the second year running to carry out the mammoth tree planting programme across Worcester.

Over the last few years Worcester has lost many trees due to a combination of storms, flooding and vandalism but the council is hoping to return some greenery to those worst affected areas.

Fourteen field maple trees will be planted at Perdiswell to extend a corridor by the Old Elizabethans cricket club after 2,000 were planted there last year.

Volunteers from Mencap will also plant ten more trees along the edge of the footpath in Brickfields Park with four more planted elsewhere in the park, where trees have been lost to storm damage or drought.

Elsewhere two liquid ambers will be planted in Laugherne Brook Nature Reserve with the Friends of Laugherne Brook while ten cherry trees and four hazel trees will be planted at Warndon Park, where some have died due to stress or vandalism.

They will be planted by local explorer scouts, sixth formers and students from the Worcester College of Technology. Every new tree will have soil conditioner, watering tubes and cages built around them to protect them in their first five years until they are established.

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