Rare Trees Find a Home at Hop Oast

Chloe Harrison
, 01 September 2023
Rare Trees Find a Home at Hop Oast
Mark, Rich and Steve planting Black Poplar at Horsham Football Club.

Thank you to Mark Butler of Horsham Football Club for this guest post.

A mature Black Poplar

Horsham Football Club's Camping World Community Stadium (CWCS) has recently become the new home of six examples of the endangered Black Poplar tree. The Sussex Wildlife Trust has donated six saplings and planted them in the area around the pond at the end of the Jack Scrase Community Pitch.

On a previous visit, Richard Black, Senior Land Advisor for the Wilder Horsham project, had noted the wetlands area at the CWCS and had suggested that it might be a good home for Black Poplars.

These trees were once very common throughout England and were prized for their timber, which was used for the construction of wooden framed buildings, thatching, scaffolding poles, and all sorts of other uses. A Black Poplar even appears in John Constable’s painting “The Hay Wain”.

However, the emergence of other fast-growing imported trees meant that its importance declined, and this together with the draining of its natural wetlands habitat for agriculture saw a decline in its numbers.

In addition to this, the Black Poplar does not reproduce easily. There are both male and female trees, they have to grow in close proximity, and the fertilised seeds need to fall on just the right sort of wet soil.

Thus, numbers declined alarmingly until recently there were only 38 known examples left in the whole of Sussex.

The Black Poplar is an important tree in the environment; over 100 different species are associated with it for food, including moths such as the Hornet Moth (!), the Wood Leopard, and the Poplar Hawk. Bees find nectar in their catkins and the seeds are eaten by finches.

The Royal Botanic Gardens Kew at Wakehurst Place have been taking cuttings from each of the surviving trees, nurturing them, and then planting the cuttings in suitable locations. It is from these cuttings that our six new arrivals have been produced.

Black Poplar cutting propagation at Wakehurst

Thus, it was that on a sunny spring morning Richard and his assistant, Steve, arrived in the Sussex Wildlife Trust van with the six young saplings. The best positions around the pond were chosen for them, then the ground was cleared, a small hole dug and each tree planted with a support and tree guard against possible deer or rabbit teeth. The position of each was then noted using GPS and entered on the SWT database. The six trees were finally in their new forever homes.

Black Poplars take a very long time to grow but can live for up to 300 years!

So, if you happen to be at a Horsham match at the CWCS in 100 years’ time, please check how they are doing, and be sure to let us know!

Mark (HFC), Rich and Steve (Wilder Horsham District) helping to plant the Black Poplar.

You can find the link to the original blog post here.

Find our more about the Wilder Horsham District project.

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