National Tree Week at Goodwood

To celebrate National Tree Week, Goodwood Employees joined the Forestry Team for a number of tree planting sessions, as they aim to plant 21,000 trees across the Estate during the planting season, which runs from November to the end of February. Throughout the week, employees helped the Forestry Team plant over 1,600 trees!

They mainly planted native broadleaf trees including, oak, beech, hornbeam, field maple, sweet chestnut and small-leaf lime, which is in addition to some wild service with understory planting to enrich the soil and provide food and shelter to insects and animals. There will be some mixed conifer to add more height and another source of habitat, and a few non-native curiosities grown from cuttings collected on the estate, alongside some trees grown in pots from Goodwood seed over the last few years.

Goodwood’s Head of Forestry, Darren Norris, said “It has become a good tradition at Goodwood for staff to get involved and help the team during the planting season, and this year it is even more important. The current project will cover two planting seasons with this first season planting 21,000 trees.The whole project will create a bund of woodland from Halnaker to Lavant with a permissive path running the full length for all to enjoy. This will improve the habitat potential for many of our rare mammals such as the barbestelle bats and dormice, plus summer nesting birds and winter visitors. It’s also a great opportunity for our staff to plant a tree for the future.”

The planting which took place between the villages of Halnaker and Westerton, will support the future plans of the permissive path in this area, as well as improving the wildlife habitat of native and vulnerable species on the Goodwood Estate. Having the trees in place will give animals a safe passage between other woodlands, which will act as a wildlife corridor. This is phase 1 of a two-year project that would then see the scheme continue as far as Lavant village next winter.

Find out more about our environment at Goodwood.