Daydream fund challenge part 4

RAS

Too many people get hung up on the old trees, and forget that succession planning is vital. Not that I don't love old trees.

There was an outcry here when it was proposed to remove a few mature beeches as there was no new growth under them at all. Once some decent saplings have established in the clearings, they can remove a few more trees.

And I know other areas where they weed out beech to ensure an otherwise mixed woodland .
Although I'm not a great fan of turning good agricultural land into woodland either, but in planting steep slopes and hillsides.

Davesnave

RAS said:

Although I'm not a great fan of turning good agricultural land into woodland either, but in planting steep slopes and hillsides

Ah, plenty on the steep slopes, as you can see. The rest are mostly along the riverside. My cheapo pocket camera turns everything into a watercolour when the light starts to go!

Ted_Head

Lovely photos. 
I've planted loads of trees but the regen that's started is incredible. Since deer fencing years back it's given them a chance. I actually should hack quite a few down I suppose.
I plated a maiden hair tree which is flowering now - never noticed it doing that before.
Monochrome cat has just arrived singing with a bird in his mouth - didn't want that to happen - but that's cats I suppose.

Lovely day here - weeds seem to appear overnight. I'm rubbish at gardening.

RAS

I was always stunned by how many small trees there were hiding in the heather. As soon as you took the browsers and grazers off, they would come away strongly. And coming through from a mature root system it'd only take five years to have a decent copse. Obviously got to get past salt burn in some places as well.

Tragic though how much damage could be done if the fencing was breached. Remember one site where a tree fell in a storm across a fence. We could count the branches to work out that 20 year old trees had been browsed to nothing. Still coming away from the base every year and being browsed out in the winter.

Ted, you could consider coppice and single? Or allow hazel to act as a nursery for larger species, sheltering the young trees until well established?

Ted_Head

The only breach in the fence is along the shore line and the goats do come in in the Winter and they do prune the holly trees which I find amazing but annoying. 
The trees in parts are too close together - I think that taking out quite a few of the birch & mountain ash would benefit the other ones.
I do have hazel - some massive hazel that seem to self-coppice - branches come down in a gale.
The only trees on the croft were hazel, birch, Rowan, crack willow & some crab apples. I planted a few Horse chestnut - grown from chestnuts, other willows I'd cut branches from other trees, beech, alder - found in ditches, sycamores - found self seeded in car park & loads of bird cherry that I had in pots from self seeded finds, some Scot's pine, spruce, apple trees, monkey puzzle, eucalyptus, acers - one that I killed the other week & some firs that I shouldn't really of planted. The alders have done unbelievably well as have the sycamores (size wise) . I kept having to replant elders as they didn't do well & now have one that's lived a few years. It's not planned - very hodge potch. I tried blackthorn but that died - I think I planted it in the wrong spot.
The most incredible thing is we now have loads of different birds come where as before it was mainly crows & pigeons.
I have taken down a few birch and willow and they just sprout again. I cut down my gum tree as I thought it was dead and it looked awful but that has come away. I can't see the main road now - which is brilliant. But I think that the big improver was planting broom - it has self seeded but it does improve the soil - fixes the nitrogen - but I suppose it all looks a bit of a nightmare here as it isn't neat and it isn't tidy. I don't really know what I'm doing - just potter around & try and liberate self seeded stuff - I walk about with my eyes glued to the ground especially in NHS Gardens and have loads of pockets.

Davesnave

Ted_Head said:

 I walk about with my eyes glued to the ground especially in NHS Gardens and have loads of pockets.

Should your local hospital look out for you, or was that a slip of the keys?

I was walking around with my eyes glued to the ground tonight too. It was because I'd gone fishing on the interesting-looking, wild, wiggly bit, where Pete said he'd got me permission....except he hadn't!

When pressed, Pete said: "Well it's old Thingamy up the BIg House's fishing, but he's old and don't go there, and it's Bill Stoneacre's fields, but 'ee won't mind!" So with that..er..permission,  I set off....

I could see straight away why Old Thingamy "don't go there." The place was chest high in nettles, brambles, thistles etc and the bankside trees hadn't been touched in decades.Getting to the river anywhere was commando stuff, but I managed it in a few places. Most bits looked dangerous  or just impossible.

In the end, I caught one good sized trout. Despite feeling like a Neanderthal hunter-gatherer, I put the fish back, as we've a couple of rabbits Pete shot and Neanderthals don't have freezers.

I will go again, when my legs have stopped tingling and my aches have gone. It's as bad or worse than the other wild places I go, but being close to the railway, there's a brilliant 'phone signal so it's safer.....theoretically. I texted DW on Sunday night when I finished, so she could put my dinner in the oven. The message arrived here about 11am the next morning!

RAS

Ted, I think gentlemen who introduced exotics onto their land were called plant collectors? There are some things that are NOT a good idea in the UK like Himalayan Balsam and Japanese knotweed. As a bee keeper I'm not looking forward to meeting the Asian hornet, although I know some of my fellow keepers love Balsam.

I grow a number of things that are not supposedly UK plants including Sharks Fin Melon and Sichuan pepper and am peed off with a neighbour who has cut down his sumac If I'd known what this summer was going to be like I'd have grown dudi and karela as well, You've never seen anything grow like dudi except karela which was apparently grown by seed and plant companies as greenhouse shading before anyone learned how to use them as vegetables in the UK.

So enjoy your untidy nightmare as it's probably providing a range of opportunities for the local wildlife that they've not had in a long time.

Ted_Head

Dave - NHS garden - LOL. I'll liberate seeds/seedlings from any public garden if I see them on a path :-) I think I meant NT - although they are all shut here still. They had Inverewe taped off the last time I went past. I used to go in in the evening occasionally as it was much quieter - no coach parties cluttering the place up.
Good you can go fishing.  I wish I knew how to fish as the mackerel are back - you see them under the surface - the water looks like it's boiling. Then we'll get the dolphins in to fish.
RAS - you still like your exotic veggies - I'd never heard of the things you've mentioned but that sounds marvellous.
Yes, the plant collectors! They did a lot of releasing stuff into the environment that shouldn't really be rampant. The rhododendron is everywhere here & they have started running classes about the twist method of removal that the Forestry Commission ( if I remember rightly) seem to have perfected. Giant Hogweed was rampant in the Middle belt when I lived down there. We have the Himalayan balsam here and Jap Knotweed in an estate I used to do some garden work in - that is a pain. 
We had clients who had it on a site and it had to be dug out - an insistence from the Planning department.

One of the reasons we came here was the lack of pesticide use - having worked and lived on farms that grew things such as Oilseed rape and broccoli - massive mono-cropped fields -  I wanted away from the heavy constant spraying that created deserts.
I have  a bit of a love/hate relationship with the isolation but I do love my croft. I just get stressed sometimes with the way it just does as it pleases!

Davesnave

After being rained and blown off visiting Rosemoor for the past two Thursdays, an old friend and I finally hit on one of the hottest, sunniest days of the year and staggered around in the sweltering heat . Seeking  shade, I got to see the woodland and arboretum I've not been in for years, but everything was a little too rushed. I find non-addicted gardeners can only stand around about 90minutes of garden viewing before their eyes glaze over and they head for the tea stall and gift shop, so our 2.5hrs was pretty good, but I've only added two more plants to my list......

As I pulled out of Rosemoor, I heard the first rumbles of thunder , so it was a quick sprint round Lidl and the storm began chasing me home...."Whoo!" I thought, "that's the watering and more H2O in the river!" but I lost it somewhere around Beaford and it still hasn't arrived.... :'( . That often happens here: the rain comes into Barnstaple Bay, goes up the river and then veers over the moor, missing us completely. Nice, when we already have enough.

Those mackerel are dead easy to catch, Ted. I've seen the shoals being chased in the lochs, but I think  it was members of the shark family, like tope, in pursuit when we were there. Anyway, I geared up with a 9' spinning rod and threw lures at the places where the water was 'boiling' with mackerel in the long evenings and caught loads. I remember DW asking people in the car park if they wanted fish and then we caught them to order. Hmmm, nowadays fresh mackerel would just give me indigestion!

RAS

Dave, glad you got over to Rosemoor. The only time I caught mackerel we were out of Padstow when the captain realised there was a shoal nearby. He put the  boat into a tight circle and handed us lines. It took him and our dad almost all their time to reel in and unattach the fish and reload the lines which just attracted more bites. We took a dozen home and the captain had a load to get rid of amongst the community.

Ted, when I moved here in 1980, the local market had a couple of stalls that sold vegetables used by recent immigrant. communities. A couple of years  later, we had friends to supper and one mentioned that he was doing  course on Indian cookery. We frequented the Corner café and my ex was vegetarian, so I mentioned these strange veggies on the market and the friend was gobsmacked. So next time we met up, I bought a load of veggies of the market, to the amusement of the stall holder, and we cooked okra, dudi/tinde and karala together. Still do it occasionally although when I returned from a 5 day break a couple of year's ago to a 2 foot long dudi in the polytunnel, it went to a local family as I couldn't cope with it and it was suppressing following fruit. Like everything, fresh grown is very different to store bought.

Which reminds me that I have a couple of fat radishes to eat tomorrow before they get hot and nasty.