The Severn Treescapes project is an ambitious and collaborative three-county project between Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire Wildlife Trusts, aiming to work with landowners to integrate more trees on their land. This is to create more habitat for wildlife, thus providing shelter and food, as well as improving connectivity in the wider landscape while working closely with landowners to benefit their own sites and businesses. Every project is different but we advise on a wide range of tree-based interventions and help navigate the various complicated and confusing funding streams to make these projects happen. I talk to many different landowners and see many different sites but one of the highlights of my job is working with community groups. 

There’s a hotspot for these kinds of projects around the southern end of the Malvern Hills. Here we have found very enthusiastic environment groups, motivated volunteers and some brilliant parish councillors that work very hard to restore, manage and extend their local green spaces no matter how big or small. There must be something in the water. 

I’ve been very lucky to work with groups in Hanley Swan, Welland and Castlemorton on a variety of exciting projects including hedge planting and gapping up, orchard planting and maintenance, wood pasture planting and some small woodland planting projects. It is always a pleasure working with passionate people and I always leave feeling inspired to do more while feeling confident that the trees we’ve planted together will be looked after. 

It has been a very eventful and successful year for Severn Treescapes and I’m not just saying that because it’s my job! In the southern Malvern Hills area we have planted 376 metres of hedgerow, half a hectare of woodland, 20 wood pasture trees (some of those being threatened, native black poplars) as well as restocking where we have lost trees due to last year’s drought – all resulting in 4418 trees planted (with the majority of those being planted by volunteers!).