Dawn Alder Planting Mission

Tricky Sites

This site is one of the most awkward to plant; it can't be be done in the day time, because its on an 'almost cross-roads' between two semi-major foot paths, it is over-looked by the village and also by Dartmoor Prison.

Planting this site in the dead of night also presents problems, as the site is very boggy, tangled with brambles and small prickly shrub trees, which I have planted here in previous years and the site lies between a leat and a ditch.  The only time that I felt it to be safe to plant this site was at the crack of dawn, when there is sufficient light but hopefully no people.  So that it what I have come here this morning to attempt to accomplish.

Many trees and shrubs exist along this narrow strip of land and of many types.  These I put in over the past decade, they are nearly all shrub trees and are mostly getting well established here.  They include Broom, Gorse, Willow, Hawthorn and Birch.  But I haven't really added any thing to this bit directly for five years.  In that time however all the surrounding land has been planted, so this last little bit that I am doing tonight; completes this bit of the woods.

There remaining gaps between the clumps of young shrub trees were all very boggy, so I decided to string them together, with tightly planted groups of Alders, which I am confident; will do very well here.

Completion

Since this part of the woods is now compete; moral was given a bit of a boost.  I am finding that allot of sites are the same this year; as add the finishing touches all over these woods of my own making.  I have been busy doing this here for the last eleven years and now it really dose seem to have been worth it.

Along this site there are many clumps of Stinging Nettle and Russian Comfrey.  Both get quite large in the Summer and have dense light blocking foliage.  I am assuming that my Alders are both big and robust enough to cope with this, but never the less I have tended to put them around the edges of these sites, rather than right in them, as I feel they will have a better chance, than they would have had in the centre.  If they were a little bit bigger it would have been OK to plant them further into these clumps, but I was concerned that they would not survive as well, if I did.

Alders are very good at pushing up through stuff, better than most trees, but I never like to take unnecessary risks with my little trees, so I like them to be taller than the height of the summer vegetation.

Nice Welcome Home

Cats are usually noted as ignoring their humans, but I received a very warm welcome from my kitten, called Max, when I got home.  Very nice after a cold wet dawn planting-mission.  Occasionally a few of the cats actually appear when I am out planting trees, although that is usually; to come and get me, because they want something.  
Could this be an actual feline selfless act?