Broadland Country Park - Biodiversity and conservation

Tree planting

This year, our wonderful team of volunteers are planning to plant 300 new trees in the park.

The planting will take place in our historic sweet chestnut coppice, helping to restore it back to how it would have been in the 19th century.

Improve biodiversity – We have planted Hazel, Oak, Rowan, Hornbeam and Field Maple in the coppice to help to provide more food and shelter for different types of wildlife.
Improve the productivity of the coppice – Adding different tree species means there is the opportunity to produce wooden products - such as Hazel poles for fencing or bean poles. We plant trees close together means that the trees are forced to grow straighter, which creates a better product.
Make the coppice more resilient to climate change – As our global temperatures continue to rise, our trees are experiencing more stress, pests and diseases, which can be deadly in a single species coppice or plantation. By adding different types of tree, if one species catches a fungal disease, the woodland doesn’t completely disappear. The additional shading created by adding more trees will also help to reduce water loss in hot weather, and coppicing also causes the tree to suck up more carbon and pollution from the air, as there is more growth than on a typical mature tree.