Wildlife Circus

    The Orchard Project in conjunction with Kingston University, led us in a restoration of an old apple and pear orchard, located to the rear of St. John's the Baptist Church, Kingston Vale. The trees are more than eighty - one hundred years old. A task planned for some time but postponed due to circumstances. We split into three teams to prune the trees, our objectives to encourage more horizontal fruit wood in 'open' trees, so that fruit would obtain greater amounts of light. We do not necessarily cut out the dead wood, as this is an important component for invertebrates.   A participant from the church team, took us to another orchard nearby, where there were old trees of a similar age, surrounded by newly planted and well tended fruit trees (apricots, apples, cherries and pears). This was at Kingston Hill Place, which has its own water gardens designed by the same partnership that designed the water gardens at Warren Road: John Gould Veitch and Henry Veitch , two well