This month: Big Garden Watch 2025; COP29 outcomes; Fungi: the web of life; Hardy cattle deliver benefits on the farm; Hedge laying at Low Houses; Last seed boxes filled; New hedges planted in Arkengarthdale; North Yorkshire Council provides £150k for farming programme; Thanks from an appreciative visitor to the two dales; Tree Amble Podcasts; Tree guards and stakes; Volunteering opportunities coming up: YDMT Seed to Sapling Newsletter No 5; Yorkshire Water reducing storm discharges near Bedale;
Big Garden Watch 2025
Registration has opened for the RSPB Big Garden Watch 2025 running 24-26 January 2025. You choose an hour and record the highest number of birds of each species that land in a designated area. Details available on the RSPB website.
COP29 outcomes
World leaders met between 11 and 22 November at the latest annual UN climate change meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan. A deal was reached at the very last minute with developing countries complaining that the $300bn (£240bn) a year that they will receive in climate finance by 2035 is paltry. In return, the developed nations feel that the settlement was more than adequate being an improvement on the current contribution of $100bn (£79.8bn) a year.
There was criticism that once again, the COP meeting was being held in an oil rich and authoritarian state. The Climate Change Committee has written a report: COP29 Key outcomes and next steps for the UK – Climate Change Committee. Lots of press coverage including on the BBC – 5 takeaways from COP.
Fungi: the web of life
Catch the programme by Merlin Sheldrake shown on BBC 4. Lots of great photography and covers some of the uses of fungi such as in medical research or breaking down plastic. And did you know fungi can influence weather? It can be viewed at: BBC Four – Fungi: The Web of Life.
Hardy cattle deliver benefits on the farm
If you’ve got 15 minutes to spare, there is an interesting video interview with Neil Heseltine on how releasing hardy cattle on his farm in Malham is good for nature and good for the farm. The film called Release the beasts can be viewed on Youtube.
Hazels planted at Reeth Community Orchard Garden
Our first two hazels reared from Ivelet Woods hazelnuts gathered October 2022 were planted at the Reeth Community Orchard on 4th December. The hazels were planted by Eileen, one of the original volunteers to turn the wilderness into the gardens they are today and helps to celebrate both the first seed to sapling success
for the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust/Sustainable Swaledale Seed to Sapling joint project and 20 years of the garden.
We are grateful to Eva and Richard of the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust for coming to the event, providing refreshments and the continued support from the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust for the Seed to Sapling project.
We will be planting more of the locally raised hazels on sites around Swaledale and Arkengarthdale in the next few months. We have hundreds of other seedlings at the Reeth Surgery tree nursery which will be ready for planting next autumn
Hedge laying at Low Houses
Following on from two days of beginner and one day of intermediate hedge laying training arranged jointly by Tees-Swale: naturally connected and Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust, two teams had a go at doing some more hedge laying. The two Peters and Joe tackled one end of the length of hedge needing laying and Margaret, Rob, Rachel and Naomi the other end. We didn’t quite manage to join all the bits completed during training but we hope to manage to do that on the next planned day on the 19th December. Thanks to Martin for providing us with some lovely soup at lunchtime and to everyone who attended the training days or the task day. Between everyone a considerable amount of hedge has been laid and a good number of compliments about the hedge looking good have been received.
Last Seed boxes filled
Thanks to the availability of fine wines for Christmas at our favourite grocery store we have secured enough wine boxes to plant the last of the alder, birch, hawthorn and rowan seeds collected this autumn. All the seeds, berries or nuts are collected with the kind permission of the landowner.
New hedges planted in Arkengarthdale
Despite doubts about the weather following Storm Darragh, we did manage to get out and plant some new hedges in Booze on the 8th December. The hedge mix included hawthorn, spindle, blackthorn, holly, dog rose, crab apple and guelder rose.
Commercially bought and also locally grown Ivelet hazel were also planted. The south facing site was surprisingly protected from the winds and the rain mainly held off until after the task. A big thank you to our host who provided soup and cake and helped ferry people to the site and to everyone who gave their free time to come and plant despite the poor weather forecast.
North Yorkshire Council provides £150k for farming programme
York Press article on a sustainability programme launched by David Skaith, the Mayor of York and North Yorkshire. The scheme, which has been taken up by 30 farms, is billed as “the only one led by a public body in England,” identifies practical ways to reduce emissions, support nature, and build long-term farm resilience, according to a spokesperson. There are four services available: a comprehensive energy audit; a renewables feasibility assessment; a biodiversity net gain assessment; and soil carbon testing. North Yorkshire Council has provided £150,000 in funding for the programme through the Government’s Shared Prosperity Fund.
Thanks from an appreciative visitor to the two dales
We received the following email;
Dear Friends
We have just returned from Swaledale, our absolute go-to place in the world. The cottage had a copy of the Reeth Gazette and I read the inspiring piece about your work. I would like to make a contribution, so please could you send me your bank details.
Regards
Frances
Tree Amble Podcasts
A series of podcasts by Pete Leeson who works for the Woodland Trust in Cumbria and delivered a Tees-Swale: naturally connected lecture on trees in the farmed landscape. After 30 years working to restore nature in forests and on farms, Pete Leeson takes time out to revisit the people he’s met along the way. Throughout the series, Pete discovers how land managers are adapting and responding to the nature crisis we all face, while navigating the economic challenges within farming today. People are at the heart of this podcast, holding the potential to do some incredible things. We meet farmers, ecologists, rewilders and more to find out how communities are building a future together which respects and supports nature. Podcasts can be found on his website.
Tree guards and stakes
In the last newsletter, I explained how we sorted out the trees for each site after delivery. As part of the delivery we also get tree guards, stakes and bamboo canes. The bamboo canes come in wrapped bundles of 250 and come from China so it would be nice to find an alternative option which is equally cheap but doesn’t have to come so far.
We are currently buying Tubex Easywraps for our hedging. Easywraps are a low-cost alternative to spirals and give the plants a bit more room and can still be used with canes. The vertical slit of the wraps creates a natural overlap that allows the wrap to grow with the tree and is easier to install and remove than spirals, while the twin-wall construction offers improved growing conditions. They are ideal for helping establish trees and hedges where the lateral growth of branches is important. Easywraps are made with an average of 35% recycled content and fully recyclable through the Tubex Tree Shelter Collection & Recycling Programme at their end-of-life. The Easywraps are now coming in cardboard boxes which means less plastic although the boxes can collapse if they get damp. We also buy Tubex Shrub 60 x 130 tubes for bushier plants such as holly, spindle and guelder rose. These are used with softwood stakes.
Where cactus or sheep are going to be grazing around standard trees, we also use cactus guards. These metal guards have spikes to discourage animals from leaning on the trees and are not visible until close up. This makes them more discrete than other tree shelters and they are also cheaper. They come flat and are bent into
shape, tied with metal ties and kept in the ground with rebars. Being metal, they can be reused when no longer required.
We currently take advice on what to purchase from Tees-Swale: naturally connected who pay for the tree planting. We understand that plastic-free guards are becoming more available and we might be able to explore alternatives in the future. Tree guard removal is factored into all the projects and we also help remove redundant tree guards from other sites. We completed another task in Storthwaite woods removing tree guards in November. Six dumpy bags were filled – it is amazing how many guards you get in if you crush them. The bags go to the Tubex recycling collection point near Hawes from which they are sent back to the factory for use in making new guards.
Volunteering opportunities coming up
Sustainable Swaledale has a mixture of tree and hedge planting, hedge laying and woodland maintenance tasks, with a mix of weekend and week days to choose from in Swaledale and Arkengarthdale. The tasks for Spring 2025 are being planned at the moment and will be advertised via the Sustainable Swaledale Facebook page and our volunteers email list. You can also visit this link to access the spreadsheet detailing the task dates and sign up. If you have any problems filling in the spreadsheet, please let Rob know via info@sustainableswaledale.org. If you don’t want to display your email address but would like to sign up, add your name to the spreadsheet and get in touch with your email details so that we can forward instructions.
If spaces have already gone, keep an eye on our facebook/voluteers email list where we might advertise vacancies at short notice
YDMT Seed to Sapling newsletter 5
Eva Irving, the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust (YDMT) Community Conservation Officer, has produced the fifth newsletter updating us on what seed we should be collecting or planting at the moment. The newsletter can be found on the YDMT website, the Tree Nursery WhatsApp group or you can view it here.
Yorkshire Water reducing storm discharges near Bedale
Yorkshire Water is investing £2m at a storm overflow to reduce the number of discharges into a tributary of the River Swale. A new 500m surface water sewer will be laid from the village green at Langthorne, 4km north of Bedale, to the watercourse, preventing surface water from entering the combined sewer network and mixing with wastewater and reducing discharges when there is heavy rainfall by 50%.
Source: Richmondshire Today
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
We do not have a meeting in January so the next meeting will be our AGM on Thursday 7th February. Please get in touch if you’d like to join us.