Marlborough Rewilding Project
From Clay to Canopy: How a Living Hedge and Teamwork Are Transforming Our Campus Soil
If you walked past the College rewilding site recently, you might have spotted a muddy, energetic crew wielding shovels, wheelbarrows, and an impressive collection of saplings.
We were thrilled to host the expert team from A Little Wild in Desaru on Wednesday, 20th May. Together with College staff and some incredible community helpers, we spent the day getting our hands dirty for a crucial mission: breathing life back into our campus soil and laying the groundwork for a thriving mini-ecosystem.
Here is a look at what we achieved during our action-packed week, and how your family can get involved from home!
Ultimate Workouts & Heavy Lifting: Wednesday’s Team Effort
We owe a massive thank you to our hardy parent volunteers from Barton Farm, who joined the staff on Wednesday and brought an unbelievable amount of muscle to the project.
The team did not stop all morning – they pushed wheelbarrows, lifted heavy sacks, dug trenches, built fences, and began the initial planting phase. Frankly, after a morning of that level of teamwork, nobody needed a workout at the gym!
Thanks to this collective powerhouse, we were able to check on the development of our living hedge (grown from resilient cassava) and prepare the ground for the next big phase.
Breaking Ground (Literally) with New Trees
If you’ve ever tried to dig into the soil around the College, you know it can be incredibly compacted and tough. To fix this, we need nature’s best drill bits: tree roots.
The initial trees planted on Wednesday will naturally push through the hard earth, breaking up the dense soil layers to increase aeration and invite earthworms and beneficial microbes back into the ecosystem.
Year 3 and the “Placentas” of the Forest
The excitement didn’t end on Wednesday. On Thursday morning, our enthusiastic Year 3 children headed out to the small trial site to take over the mantle. The children worked incredibly hard to plant hundreds of trees. These young saplings are going to act as the “placentas” of our rewilding forest – nourishing the land, protecting one another, and providing the vital life-support system that our new ecosystem needs to establish itself.
Closing the Loop: Our Next Steps
Rewilding isn’t a single-day event; it’s an ongoing cycle. To give our newly planted trees the absolute best chance at survival, we are introducing a new campus-wide initiative.
The Green Loop: Moving forward, we will be collecting our college plant waste and transporting it directly to the rewilding site.
This green waste will be carefully layered around our raised beds to create a natural mulch layer that will lock in moisture, suppress weeds, and feed the soil as it decomposes.
Now, we wait, watch, and cross our fingers as nature takes the reins for the next steps!
How You Can Help at Home: Raid Your Fruit Bowl!
We want to keep this momentum going, and we need our school families to help us grow. Next time you are preparing snacks or dessert at home, please save your kitchen scraps for us:
- Fruit Seeds: Save the seeds from any fruits you eat at home.
- Pineapple Tops: Don’t throw away the leafy crowns of your pineapples – we can grow new plants from them.
Where to drop them off: Please bring your saved seeds and pineapple tops to the Seed Collection Point at Miss Olivia’s desk in Pre-Prep.
Get Involved
A massive thank you to the team from A Little Wild in Desaru, our unstoppable Barton Farm parents, our brilliant Year 3 pupils, and the College staff.
If you are interested in volunteering, helping out with the next phase of the trial site, or want to know more, please contact the rewilding team through Mrs Burbury, Mrs Rendall, Mr Bentall, or Miss Ali.
Mrs Jennifer Burbury, Head of Year 3