November Blow Job

Our first visit for a while and the main job was to check what damage had been done by the recent storms. Fortunately only 2 trees down as far as we could see. The first, a young chestnut, was soon cleared from the path. The other was the large birch in the glade that I had ring barked last winter with the intent of providing standing deadwood but is now providing leaning deadwood. Over the summer the birch had continued to grow but its leaves were smaller than the other birches so I was expecting it to die off slowly, but the weather had other ideas. Lesson learnt; if ring barking birch only cut in less than an inch (this one was cut about 2”). The storms also took the tarp of the ‘kitchen’ bender but that just needed tying back on. The stream was more full than ever and there was so much flow that it couldn’t all fit under the bridge.

We also planted more trees (like last year, these came from Kent councils free tree scheme). Some went into extending the hedgerow we planted last year by the track and creating a short hedge at the end of the glade (which we intend to lay to keep it low so it doesn’t discourage the butterflies etc from entering the glade from the field edge). We also planted a trio of wild cherry near where the path enters the glade, and a trio of ash near the parking space. This time we provided the new trees (and last year’s survivors) with guards so hopefully they will survive the attention of rabbit and deer a bit better.