So far I’ve planted twenty three small saplings in the areas I’ve cleared of bramble. Trouble is they are only about 30cm high so all you can see is the tree guards and stakes. I wanted a few taller trees you can see above the guards, that could be dotted around to create some variety of size and something for me to see growing. I found a special offer at a Tree nursery of ten bare rooted trees approx. 2m high. Two each of birch, wild cherry, bird cherry, crab apple and rowan. I collected them yesterday and headed down to the wood to plant them. They were strapped to my roof bars and it felt like I was carrying my babies out there. I drove pretty slowly all the way. It took me most of the rest of the day to plant them up. They needed quite a large hole digging but first job was to prepare the planting area by weeding out the cut-back bramble roots. They are tough knotty clumps with long trailing roots. The knot of each one had a pink bud waiting to shoot up in a few weeks. So although I have cut them to the ground, I’m expecting them to resurface and when they do, I’ll keep hacking the new growth off until they give up the battle. After planting they needed staking and protecting with tree guards. Looking good now. That’s probably all I’ll plant till next season.

I took some time off from digging holes to have a short walk around and see what has started to grow. The hawthorn and elder trees are just starting to break bud and the wild honseysuckle is starting to open some leaves. On the ground the bluebell leaves started pushing through for two months but are now showing everywhere in abundance. Also spotted numerous clumps of Lords and Ladies also known as Cuckoopint, Herb Robert, Dogs Mercury and common nettles. My woods are slowly waking up!