The January work party of the Friends of Hampshire Farm Meadows on Saturday 27th of January saw 15 people meet up on a cold, sunny morning and head up to the arboretum.

We arrived with a procession of wheelbarrows and our task was to mulch as many of the newly planted trees as we could with the remains of the mulch left over from last year. About one third of the trees were done before we ran out mulch and energy.

The mulch is used to suppress the grass around the trees to lessen competition, to give the trees a slow release of nutrients as it rots and to help keep moisture in the soil so the young tree roots are less likely to dry out. This hopefully, will mean less manual watering if we have a dry summer.

Once the ground has dried out enough in the spring more mulch will be delivered and we will have another work party to complete the job.