A Family Afternoon was held planting an
avenue of oak trees at the top end of Balloch Wood
on Saturday 3rd October 2026

Thank you to the children and their parents for permission to use their photos on the website.

The children enjoyed the various activities:

• Helping to mix the compost ingredients used to give the saplings a good start.

• Learning how to prepare the holes, and how to plant the saplings.

• And then the fun bit of actually planting the trees.

Click a photo to see larger image and access the gallery.
Arrow keys to navigate

About sixteen adults and six children enjoyed the warm sunshine to plant a total of 50 oak saplings along both sides of the main path, as an extension of the the Oak Trail, at the top of the Balloch Wood.
Sessile Oak (Quercus petraea) is particularly suited to this area.

Looking to the future we should have a splendid avenue of tall oaks.
When mature; squirrels, jays and badgers love their acorns and caterpillars flock to eat their leaves, in fact 326 species of wildlife are found only on oak.

The conifers at the Glenquicken end of Balloch Wood were felled at the end of 2024 by Forest & Land Scotland (FLS).
The area was then replanted with mixed broad-leafed trees by FLS in May 2026. The planted species mix for this area was 30% Rowan, 20% Silver Birch, 20% Hazel and 30% open ground.

The Balloch Community Woodland Group would like to thank all those who joined us for our first tree planting in the wood,
on Saturday 3rd October.

A big thank you also to the D&G Climate Hub for their funding support,
as part of the Scottish Government’s Climate Week

https://www.gsabiosphere.org.uk/what-we-do/dg-climate-hub
https://netzeronation.scot/climate-week

If you did not manage to join us that weekend, then you will still be able to take part in restoring our Balloch Wood as we plan to have further planting sessions later in the autumn & into next year.

We will also be having "weeding parties" throughout the coming year to remove the Sitka seedlings which will inevitably be sprouting up; to prevent them competing with the planted broad leaf saplings.

We will also be planning other activities to enhance the wood, once FLS have completed their work and the Balloch Wood becomes a community woodland.

So please let us know how you would like to help with the work in the wood, ( not all will require digging ), or just tell us what you would like to see happen there.

You can contact us using the link below.

Balloch Community Woodland Group

Creetown, Dumfries & Galloway, Scotland

Maintaining local woodland for future generations together.

© 2025. All rights reserved.