On the ninth day of Christmas my true love sent to me...

...9 plants a-pluggin',

 

Moors for the Future Partnership's work to re-vegetate the blanket bogs of the Peak District and South Pennines has involved hand planting hundreds of thousands of 'plug plants'. These are small plants of species including bilberry, crowberry, cross-leaved heath, cloudberry, common cottongrass, hare's tail cottongrass, and Sphagnum mosses.

8 Sphagna growing,

 

7 sites now set up,

 

 

 

6 leaves a-prickling,

 

 

5 red deer!

 

 

4 hare prints, 

 

 

3 lizards,

 

 

 

2 mating toads,

 

and a bilberry bumblebee!

 

On the sixth day of Christmas my true love sent to me...

...6 leaves a-prickling,

 

The dense, dark green, spiky leaves of Holly (Ilex aquifolium) are strongly associated with Christmas. Its flowers are a great source of food for many pollinating insects, and the leaves are one of the larval food plants of the holly blue butterfly and the holly tortrix moth. The bright red berries are an important source of winter food for birds such as thrushes. Holly is just one of the native British species which are being planted through Moors for the Future Partnership's 'Clough Woodland' project.

 

5 red deer!

 

4 hare prints,

 

3 lizards,

 

 

 

2 mating toads,

 

and a bilberry bumblebee!