Planting plan grows from strength to strength

We’re delighted to share our progress in the second year of the Park and Pool’s Ten Year Tree Management Plan (2024-33), which was put in place to guide the long-term maintenance and conservation of the parkland trees and woodland areas within the Park.

The first year of this plan involved the establishment of the Community Orchard at the far end of the Sloping meadow. This has been a great success with terrific community participation and we are eagerly awaiting the first harvest in a few years’ time. In the meantime, we invite the whole community to join us to bless the orchard with cider, song and celebration in our very first community Wassail: visit the Events page for more information!

For the winter of 2025-26, the second phase of the Plan is to establish a lime tree avenue along the newly-renovated main drive down to the Pool and enrich the woodland area just past the Yoga studio on the right of the main entrance.

Lime Tree Avenue

A lime tree avenue is a classic feature of parks established after the golden age of estate development in England from the 1600s onwards. Moseley Park had a lime tree avenue from the entrance off Alcester Road when this was constructed in the early 1900s. This wide avenue, leading to the tennis courts, has been overtaken by unmanaged woodland development over the past 100 years, and so the current plan is to create a new lime tree avenue along the recently-restored drive from below the tennis courts down to Pool. This will open up at the bottom to provide a glorious vista of the Pool.

An avenue of ten limes, five on each side, will be planted down the drive. The species chosen is the small-leaf lime, Tilia cordata Greenspire, a native species with a teardrop shaped canopy which is an excellent avenue tree. The planting will involve the removal of a random assortment of small trees, which were planted in the past without any reference to a management plan, together with a large stump of a sycamore that was taken down for safety reasons a few years ago. Unlike trees there now, the canopies of the lime trees will be managed to maintain good sightlines from the Swing meadow down to the stage during festivals. At the bottom, a dead tree and some shrubs will be removed to open up a view of the Pool.

This planting will be a wonderful investment in the park landscape for the next 100 years.

Enriching the north east woodland (which borders The Phoenix Sensory Garden and the Yoga studio)

This woodland area has been unplanted for decades and has suffered some tree removal for both safety reasons and natural decay. Such areas tend to be over-colonised by species such as sycamore, which spreads by seed dispersal very readily. The plan involves restricting this species and enriching the woodland with silver birch, Betula pendula, a native species with an attractive bark and a light open canopy which will produce a beautiful dappled light through the woodland area. The establishment of woodland flowering plants such as snowdrops and English bluebells under the woodland canopy will be encouraged.