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Buy Land Plant Trees

You help us to plant trees every time you shop with us. So far, we've planted 250,000 trees on agriculturally poor land in Cumbria.

About Buy Land Plant Trees

At the core of Chimney Sheep is our Community Interest Company, Buy Land Plant Trees (BLPT). For every purchase you make with us, 20% of the profit goes towards our Community Interest Company (CIC) which facilitates the planting of trees on agriculturally poor land in Cumbria. We set up BLPT in 2019 as a ‘boots on the ground’ tree planting initiative that is run and operated by us.

We specifically buy land that is agriculturally poor – it either can’t sustain much livestock grazing or is rubbish for arable use. As it’s a CIC, BLPT is “asset locked”. All the fields we buy and woodlands we create remain in ownership of the CIC for as far into the future as we can glimpse. The idea is to have trees that become big and old and gnarly and over time provide homes for all kinds of wildlife.

BLPT was set up to help you and us to reduce our impact on the planet. Before urbanisation, a lot of our landscape would have been covered in trees, so our mission is to try and put some of those trees back for the benefit of the environment. BLPT isn’t a tick box exercise nor a distant and detached carbon offset company. In fact, this is as much part of our business as the products we sell and is an integral part of our ethos. We are big believers in the phrase ‘think globally, act locally’ and want to make a genuine difference.

Land and Projects

Thanks to Chimney Sheep’s lovely customers and staff, we can continuously create more woodlands and wildlife habitat. Take a look below to find out more about each piece of land and what we're planting.

Sally's Wood, Bassenthwaite, Buy Land Plant Trees
Bought in 2019 | 7-acres | 5,000 trees planted

Sally’s Wood, Bassenthwaite

The field was already pretty overgrown so we let it carry on as it was. Brambles are nature’s barbed wire so it helps to protect trees from deer damage without the need for plastic tree guards.

Over the following 12 months, we planted a few thousand more trees in Sally’s. Trees were beginning to grow naturally but we wanted to speed things up a bit! Our plan was to have a good mix of species so that the site could be more disease resilient and protected should conditions change with the climate in the future.

We planted species in that wouldn’t get there on their own, such as wych elm, lime, hornbeam, field maple, sweet chestnut, walnut, black poplar, aspen, white poplar, Scots pine and rowan.

We also planted more of the species that were already present such as alder, various types of willow, ash, hazel, holly, and blackthorn.

13-acre Woodland, Bassenthwaite, Buy Land Plant Trees
Bought in 2020 | 13-acres | 25,000 trees planted

13-Acre Wood, Bassenthwaite

Although close to Sally’s Wood, our 13-acre field has a very different terrain. It is boggy and wet which meant the species and way we planted had to be quite different. In 2020, we started making plans to plant out the field, ensuring we left space for other habitat spaces and ponds to support a wider range of fauna and flora.

We used the Miyawaki Method of planting. This helps to create forest area quickly by planting mixed species trees in dense clusters, replicating the regeneration process that occurs in natural forests.

In 2021, we planted 25,000 trees in the field including species such as alder, willow, birch, black poplar, white poplar and aspen. Each tree had one of our mulch mats slotted around its base which has definitely helped because the trees are coming on brilliantly!

Low Fell, Loweswater, Buy Land Plant Trees
Bought in 2020 | 100-acres | 100,000 trees planted

Crabtree Beck, Low Fell

This is an upland site with many habitat types, including blanket bog and heathland. We’ve planted trees in clusters, using the bracken and acid grassland as a guide for planting. So far, we've planted rowan, downy birch, silver birch, aspen, crab-apple, hawthorn, blackthorn, various willows, bird cherry, wild cherry, juniper, Scots pine, hazel and oak. We've also reintroduced the rare montane dwarf birch. The areas of heather, bilberry, mire and blanket bog are being left to recover from intensive grazing.

The mire had drainage cuts in it which depleted the peatland. We’ve blocked the cuts with hessian sacks filled with sheep wool and installed leaky dams to help restore it.

It's open access land so why not visit?

Raven Crag, Low Fell with Rowan Tree
Bought in 2021 | 58-acres | Currently planting 200,000 trees

Raven Crag, Low Fell

This site has scree and montane habitats as well as a steep-sided area dominated by bracken. Woodland flowers still bloom every year - there are bluebells, wood sorrel and wood anemones waiting for trees to come back! Adjoining landowners are also rewilding, making 225 acres in total which is a significant parcel of land.

We are planting another 200,000 trees on this side of the fell. The bracken is dense, so we are planting in clusters so the saplings can support each other. The soil is excellent on this side so the trees will grow taller than the bracken in no time, then proceed to suppress it and revert back to woodland. If conditions are right we will encourage temperate rainforest to regenerate.

We’ve also planted 2000 flowering plug plants of devil’s bit scabious to encourage the rare marsh fritillary butterfly back into the area.

It’s open-access land, so why not visit?

A photo of the front of Raven Crag
The Buy Land Plant Trees Diaries: a woodland on Raven Crag

Sally Phillips17 Nov 2023

Crabtree Beck, Low Fell
The Buy Land Plant Trees Diaries: peat bog restoration

Sally Phillips13 Apr 2023

Young birch back of Low Fell
The Buy Land Plant Trees Diaries: progress, planting and pollinators

Sally Phillips12 Jul 2022

The view from Low Fell with the new fence
The Buy Land Plant Trees Diaries: winter up a fell!

Sally Phillips24 Jan 2022

The Buy Land Plant Trees Diaries: A WHOLE FELL!
The Buy Land Plant Trees Diaries: A WHOLE FELL!

Sally Phillips11 Aug 2021

Saplings and jute mulch mats planted in a 13 acre field
The Buy Land Plant Trees Diaries: 25,000 trees planted!

Sally Phillips13 May 2021

A view of Low Fell in Cumbria
The Buy Land Plant Trees Diaries: one, two and now THREE fields!

Sally Phillips21 Dec 2020

A man and a woman walking through a field, planting trees
The Buy Land Plant Trees Diaries: a summer of planning!

Sally Phillips14 Oct 2020

Alder Tree that has been planted in a rewilded field
I’ve bought a field to plant trees in and here’s why...

Sally Phillips27 Jun 2019

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20 Trees Voucher

20 Trees Voucher

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