White letter hairstreak and Elm tree revival project

The future looks bright for a little known butterfly and the elm trees of the east kent area  following a project that has teamed us up with  Kent County Council (Kent Plan Tree) and the  Kent Branch of Butterfly Conservation. Kent  Plan Tree have been involved in the research  and trials of growing disease resistant elm trees  at Lees Court near Faversham. Elm is also the  sole caterpillar foodplant of the White Letter  hairstreak butterfly, often overlooked in the  butterfly world as it spends most of its time in  the canopy of mature elm trees!. But we do  know that 3 colonies of the butterfly exist in a  stretch of country between Goodnestone and  Upper Hardres, so a plan has been hatched to try and connect these three colonies by planting disease  resistant elms within a corridor encompassing a number of our farms. February 2025 has seen the planting of 120 trees across the lansdscape spread over 14 farms.