We really enjoyed our day of rhododendron destroying last month and wanted to help again, and so this time we went moss planting instead. Thankfully the weather was a lot better this time!
We joined a group of another 15 or so volunteers and headed off into the moors above Marsden. Our challenge was to plant 4,000 sphagnum moss plugs up on the tops. This incredible little plant can hold twenty-times its weight in water which helps to keep the moors damp and less vulnerable to moor fires. They also capture carbon and create ground cover to prevent erosion of the peat.
In two years the moss we’ve planted will be the size of a side-plate. In four years it’ll be dinner-plate size and in six years it’ll be pizza-sized. We need to go back in a few years to see how it’s doing.
We’ve found these volunteering sessions so rewarding and fun to do too. They were advertised for adults but, after a quick call to their office, The National Trust were more than happy for us to join in as a family as long as we supervised the girls ourselves (which we’d do anyway). They did as much work as the adults and were proud of themselves after working so hard. They’ve also learned how good it feels to give something back and are now asking about volunteering in other ways.
