Happy Winter Solstice!

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Today is the Winter Solstice, an important point in the calendar as it marks the shortest day and the longest night of the year. It is a celebration of the returning light that goes on gaining strength until the Summer Solstice in June. The Winter Solstice also marks the start of a new season: Winter, when nature is dormant, wildlife hibernates and the trees that have shed their leaves now put all their energy into their roots deep underground.

Very appropriately, I spent this morning at a Winter Solstice Mindfulness event in woodland at Erddig Hall near Wrexham. Our group …

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In praise of tree planting

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When we were buying our smallholding and exploring what we were going to do with our 3 acres of land, we decided that we would plant some trees. Soon after we moved here, we got in touch with The Woodland Trust for advice and found that they were actually offering grants and funding support to farmers and smallholders interested in planting trees on their land.

Through their MOREwoods scheme, The Woodland Trust make financial and practical woodland creation help available to people with a minimum requirement of 1.25 acres of land available for small woods or scattered plantings. We sent …

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