Hedgerow Heroes 2024/25 season round up

March 2025 saw the last planting date in the calendar in this season’s Hedgerow Heroes project. Here we share some stats and photos from an amazing year.

1,500 metres of hedgerow restored or planted

The project has seen 1,220 metres planted and 280 metres restored. 6,000 plants were needed to reach the total. Our team have learned new skills including tree planting and hedgelaying. Using the right equipment for the job meant investing in 25 tree spades, which are designed for the planting of saplings.

Celebrating our volunteers

We couldn’t have achieved any of this without our brilliant team of dedicated volunteers. 74 volunteers gave a total of 860 hours over 35 days of planting and restoring hedgerows.

A hedgerow project for Bedfordshire

The project covered ten sites in six locations:

• Flitton & Greenfield
• Goldington
• Gravenhurst
• Maulden
• Meppershall
• Oakley

Hedgerows have been planted in diverse sites from a churchyard to a community orchard, recreation grounds to allotments. Some are in rural village settings and others in more urban places.

Inspiring the next generation

We’ve given out lots of copies of our Hedgerow Heroes Explorers Guide – an eight page activity booklet for children and families. At our session in Oakley we were joined by some of the local Brownies who enjoyed planting the new hedgerow there.

Fueling our team

Many of the sites were planted in cold, grey and wet weather in the run up to Christmas 2024. We kept our volunteers energy levels up with a plentiful supply of mince pies – 96 in total!