Trees

Trees are the amazing giants that surround us.

They existed on this plant before the times of the dinosaurs and have merged into human folklore and mysticism over time.

Science now tells us that trees are sociable, live in families and have ways to communicate and protect each other.

They can be ancient living for over a thousand years. They change with the seasons, provide food, are homes for many creatures and are one of our most valuable industrial resources.

They are critical to the planet, they take carbon dioxide and give out oxygen keeping the planet healthy.

The Forest School and wider grounds have many trees connecting us with past uses of the site. The oldest trees are about 200 years old and remind us of the time they stood in the grounds of Gilbertstone House which stretched all the way down to where Birmingham International Airport currently can be found. Others tell of when the school was opened or the school eco days and more recently planting of saplings from the Woodland Trust.

So why not begin to find out about the history of the trees in your garden or local street or park.
To find out how old a tree is you can count the rings but this has the problem of having to cut the tree down.

There is an easier way fortunately. All you need is a long piece of string and a tape measure or if you have one a flexible tape measure.

Measure around the tree trunk about 1.4m above the ground. Next decide where your tree is. If in a wooded area divide your number by 1.25. If it is in open space divide by 2.5. the answer gives you an approximate age for the tree.

So if you find a tree in open space and the measurement round the trunk is 350 cm 350÷2.5=140 years old.

See here for help sheet

Why not make a timeline for your tree can you find key historical events that have happened during the life of your tree. Was it in your garden when your house was built? Did it see the first person walk on the moon? Was it alive in the time of Queen Victoria?

If you want help to identify what type of tree you are looking at see this sheet or this poster.

Please note this activity is for deciduous trees - those that lose their leaves in winter.


Acknowledgements: The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben, Tree from seed to mighty forest David Burnie, Photos from Walking in Paradise Photography.

Wild Days

Following on from yesterday another organisation that can get you engaged with the outdoors is
The Wildlife Trusts.

Link to main site here

They also cover the country area by area and our two local trusts are:-

Warwickshire Link                                                              Birmingham Link 

The Trusts have a variety of sites to visit and explore the outdoors, perhaps nearest is Elmdom Manor next to Elmdom Park which has woodland, a meadow, ponds and an old walled garden. 

(please note at time of writing many Trust sites and carparks are not open. Where a site is open they would ask you to only visit if you are able to walk to the site from your home. Please follow government guidance to Stay Safe and Stay at Home.)

Their websites have a wide range of information about habitats and the plants and animals that live on their reserves. So how can you get involved?

Each year they run an initiative 30 Days Wild during June. Forest School is usually involved with this and activities are based around the challenges they have. See pictures below.

Individuals and families can also sign up and keep a diary of their random acts of wildness.

To take part sign up here.

I've usually taken part too and perhaps most successful has been the wildlife pond and trail camera installed in the garden.

The pond was simple just a plastic box sunk into the ground with some soil in the bottom with gravel over the top and some pond weed and a stick so anything that falls in usable to get out. In Forest School we've done a very similar thing with buckets. It's amazing what comes to live there, tiny creatures, hoverfly larvae, newts, frogs and more. The children always love going to see what is in the pond. But if you can't go to this why not try just a jar of water outside. After a few weeks you'll find something living in it.

The trail cam has been amazing. I'm really surprised at what manages to find its way to our garden.

Here are just a few of our highlights.

Hopefully this will inspire you to have some random acts of wildness and don't worry too much about the whole 30 days just have fun😀

Sunflowers

The sunflower is a large inflorescence, this means the flower head is actually made of many tiny flowers called florets. Central florets look like the centre of a normal flower while the outer florets look like yellow petals and together they make up a "false flower". This natural design helps insects and birds to easily see the sunflower and after pollination every little flower or floret produces a seed.

This year we have challenged all our Forest Schoolers to grow a giant sunflower. That means by the end of the year we should have somewhere in the region of 400 growing on site. Hopefully this will lead to a mini sunflower meadow on site but we will have to see how thing go.

The first step of course is planting the seed. We have chosen the variety Russian Giant and hope to see them achieve somewhere near to their 3 metres in height.

By early April every child had planted their seed and we were beginning to find out how many had not germinated. As children came out to check on them another seed was quickly planted.

Then came the warm weather. After the cool wet lead up to Easter we were glad of our SolarDome for getting things started but the heat when the Spring sunshine gets going is just too much for the young plants and the quickly had to be moved outside.

This led to another problem only seen minimally inside, the full scale massacre of a slug attack.

Nearly a whole group lost their sunflowers and others well on their way to 50cm were scythed down.

The children's solution was to raise the pallets they were standing on off the ground but many more will need to be planted to replace those lost.

More news to follow .......