Energy company National Grid has helped to create a new area of woodland in Pembroke-shire with a donation of more than 3,500 trees and shrubs.

The trees were given to the the National Trust-owned Colby Woodland Garden, near Amroth, as part of the company’s ‘three for one’ tree replacement scheme – any trees that have to be removed when work is carried out are replaced with three new ones.

National Grid is currently refurbishing the overhead electricity line running from Pembroke to Swansea and had to cut down several trees to make way for the work. To replace them, 300 oak and ash trees along with a further 80 hazel whips were offered to the National Trust to create an additional four acres of woodland. In addition, around 3,000 blackthorn, hazel and hawthorn bushes were planted to create a new 400-metre-long hedgerow.

As well as supplying the trees, National Grid also provided the muscle as 10 members of staff, all currently working on the refurbishment scheme, took time off their day jobs to do the planting.

Steve Whitehead, head gardener at Colby Woodland Garden, said: “It’s great that this area is now being fenced off, hedged and replanted with native species. It’s always been our intention to restore the native woodland in this part of the garden, but we certainly wouldn’t have been able to achieve it so soon..”