In the last update in November, we had just acquired the 26 acre site near Distington, which we’ve named Lodge Castle after the ruin there. We’ve had a busy winter! We’ve had 6 ponds put in, thanks to Cumbria Wildlife Trust. The ponds were dug in no time at all, and after a weekend’s rain, they filled in no time at all. We were so pleased with them! Then it stopped raining and they promptly emptied out. As part of the process, the pond diggers had dug trenches and smashed up the old clay field drains, but whoever dug them in all those years ago made a thorough job of it and there were still intact drains remaining. Our diligent digger drivers went round them all and dug more trenches and put in bunds and dug up more pipes, and finally we have 6 ponds that efficiently hold water. It gave us a new respect for the art of pond digging. Now we just leave them and see what occurs. The seagulls that frequent the local recycling centre moved straight in. Then the ducks followed. These will bring stuff from other water bodies, and weed and pond life will soon proliferate. We’ve already seen frog spawn too, which makes us happy on two counts – one, we’ve got a good population of frogs, and two, IT’S SPRING AT LAST!!
While the ponds were being dug at Distington, Neil and his crew topped up the trees in the Monster Bracken at Raven Crag / Low Fell. They put in another 38,000 trees, bringing the total at Low Fell to 293,480. We’ve had visits from the Forestry Commission and Cumbria Wildlife Trust, who are interested to see how the trees thrive. So far they’re looking very promising. They don’t grow much in the winter but they do seem to put on some girth. Maybe it’s just that all the other vegetation collapses down to make them look bigger. We’ve had a couple of happy winter afternoons rediscovering juniper that we planted in out-of-the-way places. We hadn’t seen it for a while and were concerned it hadn’t thrived but it’s looking well and although they are small plants, some have trebled in size since we planted them.
In January, with the ponds completed, it was time to start work on planting at Distington. We’d been promised 50,000 trees from an organisation but with a team of planters ready willing and able to start work, the delivery didn’t materialise. It turns out there were supply issues but they’d forgotten to mention them.
I scrambled to contact other donors. A massive thank you goes out to E-Forests who were able to get 18,500 trees delivered within a week. Chimney Sheep stumped up for another 10,000, Alertacall got in touch to say they’d like to pay for another 5,000. Then the original donors were able to supply them after all….finally Neil and his team got a total of 100,000 trees planted in 6 weeks. They always do a brilliant job and are an integral part of what we are doing at Buy Land Plant Trees. Neil works hard to get a good mix of species into the clusters despite the erratic supply – sometimes this involves leaving gaps to return to, which can be frustrating, but it means we get good mixed species clusters.
At Raven Crag on Low Fell, the challenge was the monster bracken and very steep slopes. At Lodge Castle, the challenge was monster soft rushes and a lot of mud & clay. Each site takes a bit of working out to find the “sweet spot” for putting the trees into. Although the soft rushes have impenetrable roots, they form swirls in the damp ground and there are patches of lovely soft fertile damp ground amongst them. The rushes will protect the saplings from predation and wind damage. The other knack to planting in rushes is to wear eye protection of some sort. I only planted a few hundred but still managed to get stabbed in the eye several times, and it’s quite painful!
Now it’s my favourite time of year, when things change every week as the trees bud then put out catkins or leaves and burst into life.
