• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

The Orchard Project

Bringing orchards into the heart of urban communities

  • Accredited Courses
  • Orchard Map
  • Become a member
  • Donate / Plant A Tree
  • About us
    • Contact us
    • Meet the team
    • Work for us
    • Volunteer for us
    • Our Strategic Plan
    • Our partners and funders
    • Corporate partnerships
    • Charity information and Impact Report
  • What we do
  • News
  • Events
  • Blog
  • Guides and advice
  • Local Fox Cider
    • #AppleDonors 2022
Home » News » Our orchard movement grows strong in Swansea

Our orchard movement grows strong in Swansea

At the end of June, just ten months after expanding our mission into South Wales, we held our first Orchard Gathering! The event, held at Margam Country Park, was attended by 30 orchard leaders, local volunteers and partners.
It was a wonderful day of networking, skill sharing and learning for community orchard groups around Swansea, Neath and Port Talbot. Our team have been steadily developing their networks of community groups, spreading their infectious enthusiasm and planting fruitful new urban orchards since September 2020.
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Image1of158-1024x683.jpg

Margam Country Park was a perfect venue for our first Orchard Gathering (Image credit: weCREATE)

As well as getting a chance to meet like-minded folk and share orchard tips, guests were treated to workshops led by some inspiring experts including Barry Stewart from Celtic Wildflowers who came to deliver a workshop about wildflower meadow management.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Image115of158-1024x683.jpg

Barry Stewart talking all things wildflower! (Image credit: weCREATE)

Liam Olds from Buglife inspired everyone on his pollinator walks and Tom Adams from Tom Adam’s Organic Fruit Tree Nursery came all the way from Oswestry to demonstrate summer espalier pruning. On top of all that, tours of the Margam gardens were also offered with their head gardener, Jeanette Dunk.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Image144of158-1024x683.jpg

One of our orchard leaders trying their hand at espalier pruning (Image credit: weCREATE)

“We were like children on the bug hunt! Learned so much”

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is IMG_20210625_143101-587x1024.jpg

As you can see – our guests thoroughly enjoyed the pollinator walk!

Our TOP team took the opportunity to speak about their Orchard Mentoring programme for Swansea, and also launch our new ‘Certificate in Community Orcharding (CICO), Wales’!

The Gathering received great feedback from the orchard leaders. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed sharing experiences and consolidating the work they have been doing in and around Swansea. The free “fantastic lunch” from ethical caterers, The Shared Plate, also went down a treat!

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Image9of158-1024x683.jpg

Our local Project Managers – Kate and Witchhazel (Image credit: weCREATE)

TOP’s Welsh community orchards are some of our newest and busiest projects. Despite the challenges posed by lockdown, our local Project Managers, Kate and Witchhazel, managed to squeeze in (socially-distanced) meetings with volunteers at survey sites, encouraged community groups to design their own layout for the new trees and planted five new orchards in March! The orchard leaders have been crucial in catalyzing this amazing progress; their Orchard Gathering was certainly well deserved!

“Really enjoyed talking with others about what they are doing with The Orchard Project”

We are so excited to finally be hosting in-person events like this one again. Sign up to our newsletter to stay up-to-date with other orchard events or become a member to support us and our vision!

Feeling inspired? Why not enrol onto the newly launched ‘CICO Wales’ course starting this September? CICO at TOP is the UK’s only accredited course in managing community orchards. Students learn a wide range of skills including tree planting, pruning, grafting and tree identification. Get involved!

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Image8of158-1024x683.jpg

(Image credit: weCREATE)

Filed Under: News Tagged With: community, event, gathering, leaders, margam country park, orchard, orchard gathering, orchard leaders, Swansea, wales

« We’re part of #TreeActionManchester a £1,000,000 green strategy for the borough of Manchester
CICO has expanded to Wales! »

Primary Sidebar

Footer

Bringing orchards into the heart of urban communities.

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Company Number: 06902160
Charity Number: 1139952

The Orchard Project (Cause) Ltd.
Fourth Floor The Archives
Unit 10 High Cross Centre
1 Fountayne Road
London
N15 4BE

© 2022 The Orchard Project · All Rights Reserved · Privacy Policy · Site by Charity & Biscuits