Haydon Bridge

To keep mileage down, we sent local friend of the charity Oli Wood over to check out the state of things. Despite the long hot summer, we only lost 10% of the saplings this year. That’s 45 out of 470 in the top field and 25 from 250 in lower field.

Both areas have been fenced off from the sheep with a wide margin to let natural regeneration take place and the landowners have also replaced dead trees with small saplings e.g. oaks, more hawthorn, holly that they find growing in other parts of the field and replant before the sheep get them.

The alder like the damper area of the top field and they have replanted a few willow in that section in the autumn to fill any gaps.

The landowners told us they have named the surprisingly tall and healthy oak sapling “Phil” in his honour, and he is now nearly 8ft tall!

Phil took the excuse to cycle out from Newcastle along the River Tyne, a ride he would have regularly done living up in Gateshead for a bit. The weather was beautiful and the River was stunning, if not quite overrun with Himalayan Balsam.

Our planting site in Haydon Bridge was right up top of the hill, where Phil got to work counting and recording notes on the state of things.

The oaks, usually taking a few years to come out of their guards, were already poking out the top. One of them was taller than Phil by a long shot, not a high bar to meet but absolutely unheard of for Oak saplings!

Only losing 24% of them despite the long thick grass and sunny hilltop was a big win, because the goal is 80% and 76% is a great first effort. We’ll come back with more trees and get some weeding done to give things an even better shot in 2025.