The young, small trees line a section of the path alongside the Lake, but in the hot summer months they can suffer during the daytime under the sun’s powerful rays. The local tree-planting volunteers, with the best will in the world, can’t always be on hand to give the trees a drink... but there are plenty of people who wander past here at their leisure, so why not ask them to help?
So there’s a (full) water butt, a bucket, and a simple request: if you have time to stop, please give these thirsty plants a drink! In doing so, you realise just how many trees there are, how much work must have gone into planting them and how badly they do need that drink. I watered twenty or so, just a fraction of the total, and expect that some trees (nearest the water butt) are watered a lot more than others... the bucket is too heavy to carry far down the track! But what a great idea to get tourists to help out; all those extra buckets of water surely give the trees a far greater chance of reaching maturity.
The signs also draw people’s attention to efforts being made at local scale to care for the town’s green spaces, and any of us who spend a happy few minutes going back and forth with buckets feel we’re contributing a little something to this stunning place. I bet it keeps kids busy and happy for ages on hot days too, splashing about with buckets :)