URBANITE

Things are happening in the seed orchard at a lightning pace!

Tasks 1 and 2 were the fencing and planting a windbreak. Now Task 3 is underway - and what an exciting one it is…

While some plants in the rare seed orchard will be trees and shrubs, others will be low-growing understorey species. To make harvesting the seed from these species easier to manage, we need raised beds. And in keeping with the Forktree circular economy challenge, we are making these raised beds out of materials salvaged on site - with broken pieces of concrete slab dumped on the property before The Forktree Project began, and lined with repurposed weed matting.

Who would have thought broken concrete slabs could look so good??! In a technique known as Urbanite, these bits of building waste are stacked like Costwold dry stone walls, and are now performing a new and valuable function rather than filling up landfill.

To some, they may not be quite as beautiful as the sandstone in Cotswold dry stone walls, but in our opinion their unique beauty lies in the fact that no new stone has been hewn to build these walls. Yesterday’s waste is serving a purpose for tomorrow - and is keeping out of landfill.

Happy days!

Looking good. The end of a hard day’s work at Forktree.