South Sefton and North Liverpool Green Schools

The Mersey Forest team have also been busy planting in South Sefton and North Liverpool over the last few months:

Pupils and staff from Rimrose Hope Primary School in Seaforth have created an orchard within their school grounds, with help from The Mersey Forest. Pupils helped to plant apples, pears, and plums which will be carefully nurtured by their gardening club. The project will enable them to learn more about where food comes from, as well as gaining health benefits from spending time outdoors gardening. They will use the harvested fruit to design healthy recipes and in cooking. The whole school got involved with the planting, either by carrying tools and trees to the site, digging holes, or planting trees. It was great to see so many enthusiastic tree planters, who really enjoyed getting out of the classroom to help with planting. 

Staff and children from Cambridge Nursery and Children’s Centre in Bootle joined staff from The Mersey Forest to green their outdoor space through tree planting. A combination of small whips (30-60 cm tall trees) and larger standard trees were planted, to create interest and shade throughout the play area. The planting will provide valuable homes for wildlife, as well as create much needed shade for the summer months, as the play area was previously quite exposed. Children aged 2-4 took part in digging and planting trees and bulbs, with lots of excitement over the discovery of creepy crawlies living in the soil. Despite the invertebrate distractions, there was still time to plant over 50 trees and lots of bulbs!

The Mersey Forest staff helped children and staff from Fountains Children Centre in North Liverpool to introduce some more trees to their outdoor space. The centre already has a selection of mature trees, shrubs and some structural ornamental trees; however the centre manager was keen to improve their outdoor area even more to provide further habitat for wildlife and provide year round colour. With advice from the Mersey Forest the centre decided they would would carry out some planting in the spaces between shrubs and trees. Species such as willow and dogwood were selected for their use in weaving, to create beautiful natural crafts with the children and hazel for its coppicing potential, to provide material for den building. The children were helped by pupils from St John’s Catholic Primary School, who assisted with tricky digging and supported the younger children to plant their own trees. It was great to see the older children helping the younger ones and everyone taking part and enjoying themselves!

Vauxhall Children’s Centre in North Liverpool worked with the Mersey Forest to solve their problem of a lack of shelter in their outdoor space. The area contained lots of play equipment for the children and space for running around but was surrounded by a green metal fence without any shelter belt planting , meaning the site was open to the elements on windy days and the only greenery was some short grass and a few standard trees. In order to improve the outlook of the site and make it feel more secluded, the Mersey Forest staff worked with the centre manager, centre staff and children to plant an area of shelter belt. This was made up of blackthorn, hawthorn, spindle, hornbeam and field maple. We also planted some larger staked fruit trees which will provide the centre with a supply of fruit that they can ‘taste test’ with the children.

The tree planting carried out in these areas was coordinated by The Mersey Forest and supported by the national Big Tree Plant campaign and the Woodland Trust.