Volunteers have donned their gardening gloves and picked up their spades to plant saplings to regenerate a north-east park.
More than 30 youngsters and adults turned out at the weekend to help plant almost 1,000 young trees in some of the open spaces at Aden Country Park.
The green-fingered work is part of the £2.1 million regeneration and redevelopment at the site, which is partially funded by the National Lottery Heritage fund.
As a partnership, the Aberdeenshire Council landscape services and the Friends of Aden Park, a community group which aims to safeguard the attraction’s future through volunteer-driven initiatives, appealed for people to help with the planting.
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And families and friends soon dug into the task despite the blustery weather.
Four-year-old Alfie McDonald from Peterhead brought along his own gloves and was helping his parents as they sewed saplings.
His mum Shelley said: “I heard about this through Facebook and it’s turned out to be such a nice day for it.
“We use the park a lot and it’s nice to help out.
“It’s also something fun to do and hopefully Alfie will see his tree grow up and visit it when he’s older – if we can find it.”
Another enthusiastic planter Linda Bolger is a member of the Friends of Aden and has been participating in voluntary projects like this for years.
She said: “The park is beautiful and we’ve got to look after it and do as much as we can.
“We thought there would only be a handful of people, so this is fabulous to see.
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“These trees will attract wildlife and give shelter in this open area to protect it in the future.”
Friends chairman Ian Bosberry added: “We have 950 conifers in total, but we’re hoping the area will have a good mixture of trees – it’s partly replacing ones we’ve had to take down else where but also encourage nature and create more woodland walks.”
Neil Shirran, project coordinator for the redevelopment, was pleased with the turnout and pitched in with the planting along with his son.
He said: “This really is giving people the opportunity to get involved with the park and to leave a legacy.
“We want the park to be about what the people want it to be and bringing them in by getting them to help planting and meet others with similar interests will help protect the park’s future.”
