Northwoods Rewilding
Scotland The Big Picture
We are the 50th Land Member to join Northwoods and are acting on these five key rewilding commitments, out of the nine key principles that they promote:
MORE NATIVE WOODLAND: We have plant a great variety of mixed broadleaved tree`s and have established a heritage apple tree orchard as well as planting more varieties of fruit trees that include; plums / damson`s and gage`s. While also adding on walnuts and sweet chestnuts all in protected enclosures.
Trees Planted over last 5 years, around 9,500+
MORE SPACE FOR WATER: Create new shallow scrapes and leaky dams / ponds.
On the right is our first pond (2005), 2 scrapes built and 4 leaky dams built up to 2024, 3 more great ponds built in March 2025 and a mini-wetland created on March 2026.
JOINED UP HABITATS: Continue to create woodland corridors in linear enclosures linking fragmented habitat; remove redundant fencing. Still an ongoing project into 2026. Latest section is just filling in the small gaps at the end of 2026. While monitoring which species of wildlife return to use these areas to travel through the site, as well as utilise the berries and fruits grown.
CONNECT WITH COMMUNITIES: Encourage local community to enjoy the landscape through the installation of benches, tables and paths. Ongoing into 2026 / 2027.
CREATE REWILDING BUSINESS: Continue development of low-impact rural accommodation enterprise and involvement with nature appreciation tourism. Develop further links with PKCT staff to get people out to plant up trees and use the site for schools and kids groups to develop a love of taking photos of wildlife / small beasties for example and get them immersed in nature so they wish to look after it for the future.
Pictures on this page are from parts of our Nature Restoration / Rewilding Projects.
Top Right;
Fantastic pond build which was done 20 years or so ago now and it looks so natural and is a haven for all sorts of wildlife and flora / fauna. Its about 30 x 40 meters in size and was roughly 10 feet deep in the middle.
Middle and lower Right;
These 2 are from our latest scheme in conjunction with Northwoods, as they have given us a grant to create 2 seed islands made of sustainable materials where at all possible. We have also used re-cycled tree guards and canes from trees that are now big enough to survive without them. The trees come from my Northwoods supplier (Mark Hamblin), the trees were small saplings that I potted on for a year so they were big enough to go out in compounds this year and will therefore have a better chance of surviving.
Planting; these will be planted up with Rowan / Aspen / Downy and Silver Birch / Grey Willow / Hazel and locally sourced Oaks from friends who have them in there gardens.
The 2 compounds are finished now. They both measure 4.8 x 9 meters and have the 4 rails that take the sides up to around 5ft to deter deer. Planting now completed (November 2025) with the addition of 10 blackthorn (Sloe) and 5 native wild plum bareroot saplings.
More pictures coming March 2026.
