Charvil Autumn Tree Planting is completed with Community Orchard

It has been a busy autumn here in Charvil, with over 250 trees being planted in a variety of locations around the village.

Last year the community, led by Paris Councillor Mike Heath, planted around 50 trees as part of the Queen’s Green Canopy to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. This year, the plan was originally to bring the number up to 75, for each year of the Queen’s reign, but with the help of the Wokingham Countyside service, the Charvil Rainbows, Brownies and Guides, and of course Mike and a growing band of volunteers, around 250 more were planted as part of this project, culminating in the planting of an oak in the park behind the Village Hall in memory of the life of Queen Elizabeth II.

A complementary,but separate project is the development of a Charvil Village Community Orchard. The first six trees were sponsored and planted by generous residents last winter, and the after a highly successful appeal for sponsors, it was planned to plant the next batch of trees in National Tree Week, on 26th November. Unfortunately, we had an unusually mid autumn, which meant that the trees, a mixture of plums and pears, could not be dug up by the supplier as they were not yet dormant. The date was put back to Saturday 10th December, but even with the cold snap kicking in, it was touch and go whether they would arrive in time,which they did, late on the Friday afternoon. So a mixture of volunteers, sponsors and Council staff gathered to plant the next six in the freezing weather, and once finished, completes the tree planting in Charvil for another year.

We hope to try to plant another twelve  next year if sponsors can be found, but in the meantimem we are very grateful to those who have come forward this year, and hope that this year’s trees do as well as the first batch.