Bedford Fields is the large area of green space located at the top of Woodhouse Cliff. City of Leeds school now occupies the bulk of the site, and in recent years, the remainder has become badly overgrown with brambles and nettles. But now with help from the staff of Santander in Morley, permaculture enthusiast Joanna Dorman is transforming the area into a forest garden.
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The aim is to plant the area with fruit trees with an under-planting of ground cover bushes. Several are already well established and are surrounded by herbs such as borage, hyssop and comfrey. Alder and gorse have also been planted to fix nitrogen in the soil.

A hard-working Santander team member
The team from Santander worked extremely hard this afternoon to help further clear the area, uprooting bramble roots and nettles with energy and enthusiasm, undaunted by the blazing Autumn sun and temperatures reaching into the mid twenties. They also brought wood chippings onto the site so these could be laid onto cardboard that will be used to prevent re-growth from any bramble and nettle roots that might remain in the earth.