Habitat Creation Nursery Update: January - April 2026

Plants

The main growing season has started! The focus is providing for Langwith, the new large area where quarrying has finished which will need approximately 30,000 plants over the next few years. However, we have also had some interest in providing pond plants and possibly doing some experimental propagation for other conservation organisations. The Nursery team has been working hard to go through all the plants we have on site, creating specific “nursery stock”, which we will keep for propagating, and highlighting any particularly special or rare plants.    
One of the big plant tasks we completed recently was splitting the Schoenoplectus (Club rush) we had as much as we can, then putting them in homemade “grow bags” with gravel in the bottom. The idea is that the roots grow around the gravel and create a kind of weighted plug plant. When the time comes for planting, we can simply remove the grow bags and throw the plugs into deep water, where they should sink and root quite happily. This helps us plant safely in deep water – it should be fun too! 

Infrastructure

The great plant bed reshuffle to maximise space is almost complete! Inside the enclosure we have moved one of the beds over a bit to give us better access and space to weed; there are a couple of new small wet beds in progress, as well as a space which the wheelbarrow can fit down for ease of transporting lots of lovely plants; and many of the dips in the flooring have also been levelled out, so that we no longer have little (or big!) puddles in certain spots when it rains. We also have some new pipes and sprinklers to make watering easier in the future.   

People

We had two Bronze Duke of Edinburgh volunteers with us in the plant nursery on 31st March. They spent the day potting on Cladium and propagating Brooklime – we're very grateful for their help and hope they enjoyed their day with us! 

We’ve also had visits to the nursery from East Keswick Wildlife Trust and Foxglove Covert. It is always great to speak to other groups doing similar work to share thoughts and ideas. We hope to return the visits shortly!