It’s time to plant some more trees!
We’re going to plant some more trees and I can’t get out of my head the slogan from nearly 50 years ago – ‘Plant a tree in ‘73’! It obviously had a lasting effect on me, although admittedly in those days my main interest in trees was either as something to climb or to persuade my pony to jump over! I do, however, have vivid memories of the mass tree felling due to Dutch Elm disease that brought about the tree-planting campaign.
For various reasons we’ve had to remove some trees this year, so to
redress the balance we’re planting a couple of bare-root cider apple trees. We’ve planted many trees since moving here and are lucky to have space in which to do so. At this time of year two silver birches in the corner of the orchard really stand out. I haven’t gone so far as to wash the trunks but will admit to peeling old bark to reveal shiny new bark. We’ll ignore for now the fact we stupidly planted them underneath the power line!
We’ve had to dig up a small box hedge, which edged a brick path in the front garden. Sadly the plants were showing signs of box blight so we took them out before it could spread further to the topiary shapes around the garden. I’ve tidied the area where the box was removed, spreading garden compost to replenish the soil.
Now we have to decide whether to plant something else in its place.
I’ve cut back all the old hellebore leaves to tidy the plants and am eagerly anticipating this year’s flowers. In the spring border mahonia ‘Lionel Fortescue’ is growing into a handsome shrub, with its bright yellow, scented flowers attracting honey bees on mild days.
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