Planting Trees

We have five thousand trees to plant this year. Two thousand are being planted in our woods and in smaller copses in corners of fields. These are mainly sessile oaks, hazels, rowans and birches.

Here's Leo and Esme who helped me plant 170 sessile oaks and 50 silver birch, this is within a planted hedgerow of willow, hawthorn, hazel, and lime. 

About three thousand are being planted in 600m of new hedgerow - alongside existing stone hedges and to recreate old field boundaries. These are mostly hawthorns and willow with occasional hazel, holly, sea buckthorn, dog rose, alder and holm oak. Our hedgerows are an invaluable wildlife habitat and create a crucial network. They also develop resilience in our landscape and help to moderate climate extremes. They are an important carbon sink and provide valuable alternative and medicinal forage for our cows as well as shelter. It's a challenging landscape here so I tend to plant close and in 3 rows.