Community Orchard Tree Planting At Bedwellty Park
It’s tree planting season, and volunteers from the Friends of Bedwellty Park and children from St. Joseph’s RC Primary School have been out planting apple trees in Bedwellty Park thanks to a donation from family cider maker Thatchers.
The Friends of Bedwellty Park received the donation of apple trees as part of Thatchers Community Orchard Project, which, as part of its 2023 apple tree planting season, is helping community groups, schools and charities across the UK plant more trees this spring.
The Friends of Bedwellty Park are a community voluntary group who play an active role in helping to maintain Bedwellty Park and are currently developing a sensory garden within the park, designed to provide a natural space where people can come to relax and enjoy the tranquillity of the garden whilst stimulating their senses. The apple trees are a wonderful addition to the sensory garden, providing the local community with a small orchard that can be nurtured for generations.
The donated trees feature a selection of apple varieties, including both eating apples and cider apples. They include the popular eating apples Katy and Greensleeves; Bramley a favourite for cooking; and Yarlington Mill and Harry Masters Jersey, two favourite Somerset cider apples.
In its ongoing care of the environment – and of course its passion for apple trees – this is the third year that fourth generation cider maker Thatchers has offered trees to groups through its Community Orchard Project. With 500 trees in total to be given away this year, the producer of much loved ciders Gold, Haze and Blood Orange, simply asked organisations to explain why planting trees would be beneficial for their communities.
Nesta Evans from the Friends of Bedwellty Park said of the tree planting, “We are very grateful to Thatchers for this opportunity to grow our own small orchard at the park. This project will not only support our environment and the rich biodiversity of the park, but it will also provide a valuable natural resource for our community and future generations to enjoy.
We planted the donated apple trees with the help of a group from St Joseph’s RC Primary School and would like to say a special thank you to Ms Goode, Samuel, Lowri-Jessica and Orion for all their hard work. We look forward to our first harvest of apples and hope to share the fruit with our local community.”
The children very much enjoyed getting involved with the project helping our team to plant the trees and said that they were “looking forward to seeing the apples on the trees when they are older.”
Fourth generation cider maker, Martin Thatcher, who planted his first apple tree in Somerset at the age of just five, adds, “From a single apple tree to a community orchard, it can make such a difference to people’s well-being which is why we’re delighted to be donating these apple trees through our Community Orchard Project.”