MEMBERS of a city group hope future generations will benefit from a new tree planting project.

Worcester Environmental Group (WEG) regular volunteers and young people from the Prince’s Trust planted the first Miyawaki forest in Perdiswell.

Paul Snookes, engagement lead at WEG, explained: “It’s a method of planting a large number of native trees in a very small area.

“This technique originated in Japan and is now being put into practice all over the world.

“It encourages healthy competition and results in rapid growth of the mini-forest.

“This mimics what often happens in natural woodland with a lot of densely-packed saplings competing for light and in the process capturing a significant amount of carbon.

“In addition this unique habitat is very quickly colonised by a wide variety of additional flora and also fauna.

“Severn Arts kindly donated 300 native tree saplings to Worcester City Council which arrived a few days before one of our regular Wednesday volunteer events.

“We quickly swung into action with Em, our volunteer co-ordinator, liaising with the city council to get the trees, mulch and necessary equipment ready for us to create this unique urban forest of the future.

“The group of Prince’s Trust young people worked really hard alongside our regular WEG volunteers.

“It took a colossal amount of hard work over several hours to plant all 300 of the saplings in time.

“We planted them at a density of about three saplings per square metre and made sure they were mixed up randomly and not in straight rows.

“It will be interesting to see how this experiment develops over the next couple of decades.

“Future generations should reap the benefits of a unique and flourishing urban woodland unlike anything seen in Worcester before.”