Quaker wood opening and update

Opening

Quaker Wood was opened on 22 June with a crowd of about 60 people including Ann Brodie, sister of Richard Brodie, whose estate generously donated a large sum towards it, Councillor Hayleigh Gascoigne and Simon Barrett, who kindly gave his time as a solicitor.

Thanks to BVS we hired their marquee which acted as a good focal point. It was also a shelter when a shower came at 2pm just as John Ogden, chair of Sustainable Blewbury, made a speech.

Several children took part in the pond dipping (thanks to Glen Meadows). A delicious cake was

made by Jane Kinniburgh and beautifully decorated by Ruth Elderfield. The gate (thanks to Matt

Napper) and sign had been finished in time and looked good as did the seat provided by the

estate of the late Richard Brodie. Thanks to all the volunteers who sold the beer and erected and

took down the marquee.

Update

Due to the drought this summer, volunteers started to water the trees on 5 July. We continued

with two or three sessions per week until 16 August when there was some rain. It took us a while to work out the best way to water all the trees but managed to water most of them every fortnight. Many thanks to David Kinniburgh for his efforts in setting up a system of watering, to Helen Mathias for the use of her electricity, and over 20 volunteers who have helped to water on several occasions including once in the pouring rain!

In July an oak bench was installed at the top of the woodland. This has been gifted by the

Wallingford Quakers and was made by Rodas of Oxford Oak with oak from the Blenheim Estate.

Thanks to our volunteers who installed it. It has been sited so that there is a view out from the

wood to the landscape beyond, across the Mill Brook.

Our contractors did a survey in September which showed that 223 trees had died and 165

hedging plants. They said: “For context, it has been a difficult year for young trees, with an

averaged mortality rate for Nicholsons planting sites in Oxfordshire of about 50%.  For some of my

sites planted in February this year in Wiltshire, the failure rate has been about 80%.”

For Quaker Wood,

 eight hedgerow trees were dead from 27 planted – failure rate of 30%

 215 trees / woody shrubs were dead from 768 supplied – a failure rate of 28% (of which

10 Holly dead from 33 supplied)

 Across the hedgerow, 165 dead from 1,884 supplied – a failure rate of 9%

 A total of 388 dead out of 2,679 planted.

We ordered replacements and had replanted all the dead trees by the beginning of November. At

the time of writing this, we still have the hedge to replant so would welcome help on 22

November. We have bought ‘cell grown’ plants this time, rather than bare-rooted, so we hope

they will be able to survive any drought next year better.

Anthony Stiff