Today I planted two silver birch, two rowan and hazel saplings. They were donated thanks to a partnership between the Woodland Trust, Sainsbury's and ITV. In support of the program the Woodland trust provided 50,000 trees for ITV viewers and a commemorative pack to every MP in the UK.
The Queen's Commonwealth Canopy is a unique network of forest conservation projects which unites the Commonwealth family of nations to save one of the world's most important natural habitats. Established in the name of Her Majesty The Queen as Head of the Commonwealth, this initiative is committed to raising awareness of the value of established indigenous forests, and saving them for future generations, as well as planting new forest.
Jack Grant, landscape manager at Aden Park, identified a temporary position for the planting at the current arboretum in the main area of the park. The long term plan for the trees is that they will be moved up to a new planting area at Hareshowe Farm. The new site is currently being worked on by a group of archaeologists after a grant was received for the historic dig. The new planting area at the farm will form part of the restoration and development. The park has attracted funding from the Heritage Lottery fund and Historic Scotland for the plans.
Alison Cameron from Cameron Archaeology said 'The excavation you visited is a large post-hole structure 12.4m wide and 24.5m long. It is very ploughed out but the bases of post-holes survive showing us the outline of a rectangular building with rounded ends. There is a lot of charcoal so samples will be sent off for analysis and radiocarbon dating and we think that the building may date to the Neolithic period maybe around 5500 years old. We have a small number of flints, prehistoric pottery and a fragment of a possible saddle quern. After the dig the finds will all be sent to specialists.
It’s a very exciting find and these types of domestic structures are very rare in this area. We have had a great group of volunteers and students helping with the dig as well as local school children. Lots of visitors have stopped by to see what we have found.'
Thank you to Jack and Alison for your involvement in the planting. I was reminded of a wise man's quote “The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.” (Nelson Henderson)