No hedging their bets for these ARK volunteers

Action for the River Kennet (ARK) organised another community hedge planting afternoon at Stonebridge Wild River Reserve on Saturday (March 18.)

Families and individuals joined regular ARK volunteers to plant hundreds of trees to continue a hedge for wildlife at the water meadow that ARK jointly owns with Marlborough Town Council.

The new hedgeline was started in 2014 and has been added to twice a year thanks to the donation of saplings to ARK by The Woodland Trust.

St John’s sixth form students joined ARK earlier in the week to help too, planting trees in any gaps that had appeared in the previously planted hedging and putting the final touches to a green roof on the Stonebridge ‘bug hotel’.

ARK Project Officer Anna Forbes judged the planting a success and that everyone had done a superb job: “The last four years of creating the hedge and maintaining it really has been – and continues to be – a community effort.”

“Today’s event means we’ve now planted over 2,600 native trees at the reserve.”