Avening Community
Orchard
Avening Community
Orchard
Avening Community
Orchard
Avening Community Orchard
The Avening Community Orchard is a ‘pocket orchard’ in a beautiful corner of our village play park. It’s rich in wildlife, a place where you can take time out to relax, re-boot, reflect….and maybe pick an apple or two. There are many ways you can join in: help us to manage the trees; share your photos, poems and paintings; take part in workshops; pick the apples, plums, pears and blackberries and send us your favourite recipes; or just linger a moment longer with a four-legged friend. It’s an orchard for everyone!
The Orchard
The orchard is home to 21 newly planted fruit trees alongside several fruit trees planted many years ago . It is an area rich in birds, insects, mammals, plant life and reptiles.
We’ve planted apple and plum trees which are heritage and/or Gloucestershire varieties. Many of these varieties are fast disappearing.
The apple varieties are:
- 1. Ashmead's kernel
- 2. Discovery
- 3. Lord Derby
- 4. Spartan
- 5. Hunt's Duke of Gloucester
- 6. Worcester pearmain
- 1.Czar
- 2. Shit Smock (excuse us…the name derived from what happens to anyone that over indulges!)
- 3. Excalibur
- 4. Victoria
- 5. Marjorie’s seedling
Join in
Sit back and relax
Spending time outside and connecting with nature is a proven way to boost your mental and physical health. The orchard will have benches and a picnic area for families and friends.
pick of the crop
Anyone can pick fruit from the orchard and we will organise community ‘juicing’ events from time to time.
for kids
Workshops are being run by Trust Juice for the children from the village primary school and the orchard will be an additional space for outdoor learning.
Calling all foodies
We’re beginning a ‘recipe bank’ of favourite recipes using fruit from the orchard – organic…zero food miles…straight from the tree…it doesn’t get better than that!
Pruning and plant care
Our philosophy is to let the wildlife flourish as well as the trees. But that takes work. Please contact Phoebe Carter if you’d like to help. And keep your eye open for special workshops on pruning and care of fruit trees.
Be inspired
Please share photos taken in the orchard, or your poems, prose and paintings inspired by it.
Biodiversity
The orchard is in an area of unimproved grassland surrounded by scrub and woodland trees. It is rich in biodiversity and the orchard aims to retain and enhance this biodiversity while making the area more accessible to people, reconnecting people to nature with all the benefits this connection brings to both people and wildlife.
The mounds of Yellow meadow ants are dotted across the orchard. The ants spend nearly all their life underground and are rarely seen. Yellow meadow ants feed on the honeydew from aphids that feed on plant roots. The aphids are bred by the ants in the intricate nests. The mounds usually have one flatter face which is oriented towards the south-east; this maximising the warming effects of the early morning sunshine.
Wildflowers are abundant and include Pyramidal orchids, Knapweed, Teasle, Willowherbs, Yarrow, Mulleins and much more. The long grasses and wildflowers support a wide variety of invertebrates. The orchard is home to the Dingy Skipper, a Section 41 butterfly of principal importance under the NERC Act in England. This was recorded by one of our villagers on their dog walk!
The rough grass and sunny aspect make the orchard perfect for reptiles including Grass snake, Common lizard and Slow worm.
Tawny owls make the trees surrounding the orchard their home and are very vocal throughout the year. Bats forage for invertebrates over the grassland and trees and include Common and Soprano pipistrelles, Brown long-eared, and even the Lesser horseshoe bat which has several roosts, in and around, the village.
The management of the orchard is carried out carefully and, following all relevant wildlife legislation, to create a range of microhabitats to support all our wonderful wildlife.
People
Dr Phoebe Carter
ACO ChairPhoebe was born and raised in the Cotswolds and is passionate about preserving the Cotswolds and its wildlife for future generation. She has lived in Avening with her family since 2015. Phoebe has worked on wildlife projects across the globe and is an experienced ecologist working on a variety of nature conservation and habitat management projects across the south west, also working hard to ensure the built environment becomes nature-inclusive.
biodiversitymatters.co.uk
Clare Bebbington
ACO Hon. TreasurerClare has lived in Avening for nearly five years and got involved with the orchard principally because of her late mother’s love of the natural world, and her own love of the countryside around the village. She was a founder member of the Community Café Committee and runs her consultancy business from home.