Five years on for The Jubilee Wood
How time flies. It is five years now since the Hazlegrove community braved the cold weather, armed with spades, to head out to plant trees in the Jubilee Wood – the school’s tribute in celebration of the Diamond Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Eilzabeth II. Two days of planting and lots of helping hands made light work of the enormous task of planting all the young whips.
Five years on, the wood is growing very nicely. The 60 ornamental crab apple trees that form a circle in the centre of the wood, one for each year of our Queen’s reign to that date, have produced some wonderful blossom and later each year have been laden with fruits that vary quite considerably from one variety to another. It has also been fascinating to see the different rates at which the trees that form the rest of the wood are growing and how some areas have taken better than others leaving natural clearings.
The children have enjoyed excursions out to the woods for all sorts of different reasons. These have included Forest School investigations, archery lessons, cricket matches, as part of the route for the increasingly popular ‘park run’ and for photography club. It is also popular with resident staff walking their dogs! The trees have been spectacular through the seasons and wild flowers, including orchids, are abundant and tt will be fascinating to see how it develops over the next five years.
Do visit the Jubilee Wood blog to read more about how the project evolved. Here are some pictures of the planting days to bring back some memories!
Click here to see the photos from the planting days in Flickr
