Our Current Projects

Townfield Head Farm Learning Woodland & Community Nursery

In 2019 we planted a small woodland up in Stannington in partnership with the land guardians and residents of Townfield Head Farm. The purpose of the woodland is to provide a space where we can engage communities and groups in learning activities focusing on tree maintenance and forestry, local history and heritage activities, and wellbeing activities.

In 2020 we will be developing a tree nursery that connects to the woodland. This nursery will support native tree species to grow in preparation for community tree planting from 2021. Trees will be available for planting on both private and public land, with a priority on urban areas of Sheffield. For more information about how you can order trees from the nursery, please contact gchsheffield@gmail.com

Although the impacts the pandemic had on our funding in 2020 were felt deeply, it did give us an opportunity to focus our energies on the more “behind the scenes” projects such as our our Community Tree Nursery up at Townfield Head Farm.

As part of the Woodland Trust’s Big Climate Fightback that launched in 2019, community tree packs of small whips (very small single stem branchless trees) were distributed in Sheffield, with a large number going to STAG for community planting. However, not all these trees were able to be planted before the end of the season and many of them were cared for in people’s gardens and allotments temporarily.

In early 2020, we were able to become the caretakers of these trees with STAG passing the baton to us to ensure that we could nurture and protect them at our new Community Tree Nursery. We were also very glad to be able to support Kids Plant Trees with the same offer, providing a site for their small whips to grow ready for their exciting wilding projects with children and young people in Sheffield.

Community Tree Planting Scheme

Planting small whips is great when you are planting a large number of trees at a time, but we know that this isn’t possible for everyone and is not always desirable. That’s why our Nursery exists – to nurture these small whips into larger, more established young trees that are great for planting in places where smaller trees might get trampled, mowed or mistaken for other plants.

We want to make sure these trees go to their ‘forever’ home. You can apply for FREE native tree species from our Nursery for planting in community and publicly accessible spaces. For more information visit our Planting Scheme pages.