After Storm Eowyn the day before, Saturday brought a sharp edge to the weather with the odd hail shower and patch of ice, but the blue sky was certainly welcome!

City of Trees provide a whole host of events for tree planting and maintenance around Greater Manchester. Today, we were in Miles Platting at Victoria Mill Park next to the Rochdale canal to plant a hedge along the perimeter. With Rowan every 5 m or so, we planted a range of hedge trees in between including hawthorn, hazel, hornbeam, crabapple plus others.

20+ volunteers including local councilors got stuck in to plant nearly 600 trees (580-something I think) in just over 3 hours. We loaded up wood chip to dampen grass or weed growth next to the trees and made sure that no clumps of mud were left in the park.

It was great to meet the other volunteers and hopefully will see them again at another session (one is planned for Parrs Wood in March I think), so keep an eye out for future sessions.

Before the task, I ran to St George's Community Centre in Collyhurst to arrange a painting session in February so quite the morning! Managed to run there and back with a change of footwear (my boots are covered in mud) so thankfully my running trainers survived.