90 Tonnes Of Oak Boardwalk Where They Save The World Of Plants

At Wakehurst, a Kew Royal Botanic Gardens property, they had a very exciting idea to store seeds from all of the UK’s native plant species. These were to be stored at the Millennium Seed Bank, opened in 2000 by HRH The Prince Of Wales, and by 2009 they had succeeded in their mission. This made Britain the first country in the world to preserve its botanical heritage. By 2020 they are hoping to conserve 25% of the world’s plant species, an incredible undertaking that aims to limit the damage caused by extinction of plants from the wild. After all, plants provide us with food, medicine, fuel, materials and so much more.

We are currently building an extensive oak boardwalk at Wakehurst that will use over 90 tonnes of oak, resulting in boardwalk that is more than 300 metres long. This oak boardwalk is replacing an old boardwalk and will make the wetlands accessible to visitors for many years to come. We use locally sourced FSC certified (or equivalent) oak due to its durability and environmental friendliness. Find out more about oak durability and why it is good for the environment here.

Below are a few photos of our current progress. We’ll keep you updated as the project progresses.

The first step was installing the posts across the wetland.

Next, we focused on the supports. It was pretty muddy!

As the boardwalk is curved, every board placed must be well planned.

There are several waterways that we must cross with this boardwalk.

Here is an overview of a larger area of the the boardwalk.