Volunteers complete another winter's work 'on the farm'

The Kentish Stour Countryside Project volunteers have been busy again this winter planting trees and hedges on local farms. The volunteers have planted nearly 4km (2.5 miles) of hedge around Brabourne and Hastingleigh alone in the last four years. All of this is to improve landscape quality and provide habitat and corridors for wildlife. Most of the work has been funded by the government's scheme 'Countryside Stewardship' administered by Natural England based at Wye. The Countryside Stewardship scheme has also supported the cost of creating ponds on local farm land which in many cases the KSCP has implemented on behalf of the local farmer. Work in the Ashford countryside this winter has taken place on Penstock Farm, South Hill Farm, the Godinton Estate and the Hinxhill Estate. On the Hinxhill Estate 20 black poplar treesPopulus nigra betulifolia were planted by the riverside. The black poplar used to be much more common on wet floodplains but has declined massively over the last hundred years, largely due to drainage schemes. Jon Shelton from KSCP says 'this tree is now a rarity in the countryside but in the past it was harvested as a timber tree and used for wagon bottoms and early railway carriages because it can withstand shock loads well.'