Trees

From a comparatively young age I have always wanted to live near a wood, preferably a wood with a stream either through it or or down the side and, ideally, a wood with a stream close to the sea. When I moved to Little Pennard in November 1991 one of its attractions was a 2 acre paddock with twenty or so very old cider apple trees - varieties such as Morgan Sweets and Crimson King. Some of these have prolific growths of mistletoe, and most of them have a substantial lean; so much so that in the last ten years I have lost four of them - the most recent in the autumn of 2001 from the sheer weight of apples.

I remembered a particular gardening programme on the TV in the mid eighties which centered around some chap in Scotland who owned a small glen and who had decided to plant it with wild cherries. In the space of fifteen years his cherries had grown into substantial trees with a dense summer canopy. This fired my enthusiasm and I determined to "grow my own" wood, albeit a mere two acre wood. My mother had a black cherry in her garden and every year hundreds of cherry seedlings would sprout throughout her garden. I brought around fifty back to Little Pennard and started planting.

So in the spring of 1992, together with the cherry seedlings I also started planting horse chestnut and sweet chestnut from locally-gathered seed as well as various types of willow, which will grow quite happily from whip cuttings. In the autumn of 1992 I bought a bag of Kentish cob nuts from the local greengrocer and planted those too, having heard that the EEC was to proscribe such nuts as being the wrong shape..... I now have quite a grove of these and they have been producing nuts for the last three years.

A large number of trees will grow from whip cuttings and so in the winter of 1993 I planted black and sweet poplar - and more willow. Having several ash trees on the perimeter there are naturally numerous ash seedlings every year, in the same fashion as my mother's cherries, and these swelled, and continue to swell the ranks. At about this time I planted a specific grove of alder, black poplar, oak, birch, cherry, and several different types of willow; in 2001 the canopy of this grove was so dense that all the grass died underfoot and the ground is already starting to look like a true woodland floor.

To date I have planted around 600 trees, all grown from either seed or whips. Some are around thirty feet tall with trunk diameters of 12 inches or more. Until May 2004 I mowed the grass regularly with a LawnFlite ride-on as I am firmly convinced that trees will grow better in that way but, now they are all well-established I have reduced the grass cutting to a swathe up the middle with a John Deere - it now takes 1½ hours instead of 3½ hours. The LawnFlite literally fell apart - if ever you buy a ride-on it is worth considering spending extra on a John Deere or Honda, unless you are prepared to get out the welding kit regularly....

In the winter of 2001-2002 I started "harvesting" some of the early- planted willow for logs. The intention was always to indulge in some coppicing, once the growth was substantial enough to take it, partly to provide fuel and partly to generate an ecosystem that would attract specific forms of wildlife. When I left the University in autumn 2001 I was fortunate to receive a chainsaw as a parting present (amongst others) and this will aid me in what, I am sure, will become an increasing task with the passing years. I am still planting, cost-free whenever possible, and am aiming to fill the two acres with around 1000 trees eventually. The only real hindrance is rabbits - they have a nasty habit of ring-barking saplings unless they are protected with spirals or tubes.

Apart from the paddock's indigenous population of cider-apples the range of trees planted is:-

• Golden acer
• Ash
• Apple
• Alder
• Beech
• Birch
• Cherry
• Sweet chestnut
• Horse chestnut
• Elder
• Hazel
• Hornbeam
• Japonica
• Kentish cob
• Field maple
• Oak - several varieties
• Black, white and sweet poplar
• Plum
• Rowan
• Scots pine (only three)
• Sycamore
• Spindle
• Willow - several varieties
• Yew (only two)