As an old Chinese proverb says, “if you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people.” Obviously, the writer did not live in Strathspey with our relatively low fertility soils! Planting trees are an investment for a lifetime. Aspen trees rarely flower and grow by suckering, so producing clones of themselves. Planting aspen today means future generations of aspen, and aspen for future generations of people living in the Strath. They are a beautiful tree that shimmies in the wind and is the home to the rare Dark-bordered Beauty Moth and Aspen Hoverfly, neither of which can live without aspen and have a tenuous toe-hold on survival in Scotland. Aspen in Strathspey is their home, but for this to be sustained we need a continuing aspen component in our woodlands.
An intrepid team of volunteers braved driving rain one day, and snow another, to plant 150 trees grown by the Highland Aspen Group, and in partnership with Butterfly Conservation Scotland. The stakes and tree guards were paid for by Cairngorms National Park Authority and this was all co-ordinated under the RSPB Cairngorms Futurescape programme.
Planting aspen trees on the RSPB reserve, a gap in Gordonhall Farm woodland and Insh Community Holdings were (L to R) Phil Dowling, Iain Dyce, Pete Moore, Hilary Swift, Mary Winsch and Le Qin Choo, (also helping out were Ewan Munro, Ern Emmett, Tom Prescott, Karen Birkby, Hebe Carus).