Birch Found!

My first Secure Source of Birch was discovered today on the Bimbley back Road, back from Bid'e.

I took the country road back home from Bideford (Biddie-f'd), as suggested and found many trees, but most importantly; a large seemingly endless supply of Birch and Willow.

This road had been completely unknown to me, until today.  Instead twisting around high up, coastal moorland, like the main road (A39) dose, this one climbs gently up a little valley.  It must be very old, and yet it neatly by-passes each village en route.

Along this roads lower stages, which were tidal, for quite a way along the beginning of this road; I found masses of Spindle, growing from suckers, at the side of the road, and in many place.  I quickly gathered some and bungeed them to the back of the bike, along with a few monster Hazels and two varieties of Dog Rose.  

I didn't have any tools with me, such as my spade, as I wasn't expecting to be collecting trees, but the soft peaty-clay soil here meant they lifted easily from the ground, with little damage to the roots.

A few other little stops like this; brought me Elder and lots more Hazels, but no main sequence (big) trees of any kind useful.  Much of the road was comprised of beautiful and seemingly ancient Oak and Birch woods, but parking was a real problem.  I am going to have to study a map and come back here again.

As the little road climbs out of it's little valley; it passes through a few mature conifer plantations, around a reservoir and up to the edge of the plateau.  I parked the bike in this little car park and just had a look down the little foot path.

The path was raised up on a verge, running through Larch plantations.  The verge its self was smothered by countless Willow and Birch infant trees.  They had clearly been repeatedly cut back and were not wanted in their current location and would not be allowed to grow there.  So that meant, to me; that it was OK to relocate them.

This site was a very good find.  Now what I really need to quickly find are similar supplies of Oak and Alder.

Back at the Planting Site

Draining bits of this swamp is quite hard work and diverting water and slippery clay can lead to me becoming very dirty.  I want there to be habitats suitable for as many native trees as possible, to create colonies of these trees on this plateau of bland undulating farm land, where so many of our large native trees are strangely scarce or absent.

I am digging a main drainage channel, through the top end of the marsh, leading into a twisty pond-ditchy thing and then beyond, the beautiful flooded wetland, which I am hoping the land owner will want me to leave untouched, but for the odd clumps of swamp trees, around it's margins.

I want my ditches to suck out all the access water, from most areas in the upper section and next to the Horsey field, as this will be the area most likely visited by people.  Some of the land is raised up with the soil, clay and turf; removed with the construction of this aqua-infrastructure.  These bits will be dryer still and will hopefully accommodate Oaks and Hawthorns.

Many fenced off Gorsey ditches exist around this site and will give me much space to establish many trees.  having landowner permission is a new experience as well.  That is why I am able to actually do a bit of landscaping as well and this in turn gives me the opportunity to learn about the soil structure here and how this soil works.  For example; if I dug a hole in a swamp on Dartmoor it would fill up pretty quickly with water.  here it can take two days.  The particles in the clay are minute and heavily compacted.  Most water here flows over the top of the soil and gives this land it's unique slippery squelchy quality.

There is not much time left to collect trees this year, so I must make haste with this and any elated projects.  I am optomisti however, since I have just agreed to buy a car from a mate and very very soon; I will have a Car

Not Many Oaks Here

Very few Oaks on the North Devon's Coastal Uplands

The small wind ravaged specimen, in the picture above is one of very few Oaks to be found anywhere near my new home, which can be seen, through the fence posts,  below the Oak, in the picture above.

I am just adapting to life in a new area and I believe I have found something that needs doing here; the wide scale re-introduction of Oaks.

This peninsular is mainly a boggy plateau, mostly being between 150 and 200 metres above sea level.  The hedges are strictly Blackthorn, Hazel and Willow.  It is very bland.  It looks as though large areas of this 'green desert' would have been reclaimed from being moorland, perhaps after the second world war, when our country side lost most of its natural habitats.

It is clear that Oaks do well up here as every where that they present; they have spread, clearly demonstrated by all the baby trees sprouting from the hedges around them.  Birch are almost entirely absent, although I'm sure that they too would do well up here, if given the chance.

An easy but massive task is set up for me here.  A few acorns along each of these barren hedge rows, should do the trick.  Then let nature do the rest.  have to wait till next year though, then I must collect massive of acorns in October and november, from the right sorts of Oak trees and from woodland with in a smaller radius as is reasonably possible, from this proposed giant site.

Ponies Back Where They Belong

 

At long last these ponies are back where they are supposed to be and not in the woods, munching my trees.

This lower section of the Black brook valley is the area, where the troublesome farmer is allowed to graze his Ponies, but in the Winter, when they have eaten all the grass in here and he can't be bothered or is too stingy to get them any straw; he herds them into the woods and then complains to the land owners (The Duchy) that 'we' the general public are leaving gates open and causing a nuisance with Dogs, etc.

This is of course an obvious attempt to get rid of any witnesses, I would imagine.  So he can feed his Ponies on mine and the Duchy's trees, to his hearts content.  He also tries to discourage people from coming down here, by being rude and intimidating, but people are quite defiant.

Fortunately a concerted campaign by myself and many disgruntled Dog walkers had brought this sneaky behaviour to an abrupt end, I would hope.

Welfare

Looking at this land and these Ponies; it is clear that they do not have enough grass, so he should either have less of them, or buy them some straw in the Winter. 

My Woods From Space

 A View of the Woods I have Planted from Google-Earth

 Google Earth is a marvellous tool.  I strongly suggest to anyone to download it.  After all, it is free and you can go anywhere on Earth, Mars, The Moon or in all known space.

On the above picture, you can see the circular sprawling complex of Dartmoor Prison, with a couple of farm tracts coming out from it.  You can also see a river, running Southwards, to the left of the prison.  Towards the South of the picture, going left; you can hopefully make out a small tributary, coming from the village of Princetown and joining the river.

There are two main areas, where I have planted trees on these maps.  On the picture to the right; you can make out a snakey little river and patches of trees, plonked randomly on rough ground, between a complex of leats and walls.  The thin strip of land along the river is surrounded by grazed fields.  Here I have completely planted the area in all of the gaps between the existing trees and have spilt out onto the top right area on the other side of the main road.

The other area of tree planting has mainly occurred on that little tributary coming from the village.  The top part of which is captured very well, from this satellite image below.

A mostly boggy area, squished between field boundaries, with a few footpaths, all following a different route to the same place.

The rough ground goes all the way into the village and backs on to the school and the village hall (right), so have planted all these bits as well.  Even where it backs onto the houses.

It is hard to describe the extent of the project, by just showing photographs.  I think these Google-Earth images really show clearly the extent of what I have done here, and accurately pinpoints the location.

The above picture is of the upper part of my woods along the Black brook valley, just a little bit more zoomed in.  You can see the dried out weir and even some of my little trees; beginning to become visible from space.  How cool is that?

To the right is an Ariel picture of Princetown. and a wider area map below.  It should be easy to find and is a great place to visit, especially in April, when the Wild Daffodils (which I also planted) all come out, throughout these woods and in large clumps throughout suitable sites in the whole area.

Tall Trees for Tall Undergrowth

Sizing up the Trees

I am currently in the process of planting up a site, which is largely covered by a huge patch of Rose-Bay-Willow-herb, which grows thickly, to a height of about six foot/ 2.8 metres each Summer.  Trees planted in here need to be at least the same height, otherwise when the Willow Herb grows; the young trees would become smothered and starved of sunlight, which would almost certainly result in their demise.

I have decided to turn all of the bit, which is covered with the Willow Herb into a thicket of Birch and Willow.  The site is quite damp and both Willow and Birch are often quite tall and skinny trees, so I can still collect a reasonably high quantity of trees of that height, with out taking up too much space on the back of my bike, when compared to other tree species of that same height.

It is important to note that saplings, which are smothered by other trees and which have become leggy and unhealthy looking, are not worth collecting, as if they survive, they may take years to recover.  Tangled clumps of skinny trees, which have their tops in the light are fine, but they will probably grow better if their tops are trimmed down a bit, to some healthy buds.

 

On the above picture; I am measuring the saplings to six feet and after digging them up I cut them all to this height.  This way, they won't stick out of the Willow Herb and blow over in strong winds, but they won't be smothered either and they won't really be noticed by walkers, etc; until they have grown a bit and look both established and naturalised into their new environment.

Collecting taller trees is less efficient as less can be collected and planted and allot more work results in less land being planted, but the trees are bigger and will be woodland in less time and of course trees have to at least equal the height of the undergrowth they are planted in, if they are to survive.

Broke my  Spade

It is very annoying, when something like this happens.  The crack in the handle of my spade has been widening, for quite some time now, but I had anticipated it lasting for a little while longer.

This inconvenience did not bring a close to tree collecting, but did make it more arduous and hard work. 

Thankfully though most of the big trees had already been dug up, by the time this happened, so it wasn't too bad and later on that day I mentioned what had happened to one of my neighbours and he has lent me his, until I can get mine fixed.

Small Trees for Short Grass

Other sites which I am planting have short grass, which is mossy and never gets very tall.  On these sites small foot-high (30cm) trees can be used and much larger areas can be planted far more quickly.  So I pulled up a whole load of smaller Willows and Birch trees and put them in the bags, with the larger ones.

I am limited by how many bigger trees I can logistically fit on the back of my bike, but there is usually still room for a few bundles of smaller ones, which don't really take up very much space at all.  Doing this makes the whole mission greatly more efficient and means allot more land gets planted.

Not Enough trees to Complete the Site

Even with the motorbike fully loaded with two big bags of tall trees; there were not enough to complete the site.  I did however get a big swathe of it done, but I will probably need me to put some more in here before I move.  Although I could always leave a patch in the middle as a Willow herb reserve.  There are enough trees in here to colonise the remaining areas eventually and the site is by far, mostly planted.

The trees here are trimmed back six foot stocky saplings.  last year's introductions on this site have done very well.  I would be optimistic and imagine these will as well.

A decade from now, these trees will be tall fast growing young woodland and the silver trunks will look fantastic.  The Willow herb will at last be tamed.

Dutch Elm Disease

Remember Elms?

How it was

Elm trees used to be as common as Oak.  Whole woods were Elm.  They were huge, a real classic symbol of the English countryside.  They were in parks, gardens, golf courses, lining hedgerows and in woodland. 

I remember them so vividly.  I remember how beautiful and big they were.  I remember where they were; exactly where huge individual elm trees used to stand and where they had stood for hundreds of years.  I remember their little round wind borne seeds, which showered the ground, like Autumn leaves and blew into heaps.   This mighty, strong established tree, with many different varieties.  Unthinkable that they could be gone within one decade, but they were.

Dutch Elm Disease 

Different species of Elm live both sides of the Atlantic Ocean; a remnant of when the land masses had been joined.  This disease is thought to have arisen from Asia.  From the Dutch East Indies, from what is now known as Indonesia.

In its natural homeland it fed on, but never devastated any local tree populations, as they had evolved along side them.  Problems only arose when it spread to Europe and America, most likely with cheap wood imports.

The disease was first reported in 1921 in the province of Nord Brabant in the Netherlands, which is why it was named 'Dutch Elm Disease'.  From there it rapidly spread, practically wiping out these beautiful trees right across the Continent.  By the mid 1920s they had pretty much vanished. From what I can gather; the disease ravages North America in the 1940s.

No one seemed to know what caused the disease, nor how to treat it, people used to assume that once the first few branches started to turn yellow; that was it.

Grieve 1931: "Investigations are at present being carried on as to the cause of a mystery disease, known as the Dutch Elm Disease', which is killing trees on many parts of the continent."

Because the UK is a group of Islands, separated by a large area of sea from the European mainland; we were not affected and by 1927 we banned had all imports of Elm wood from the continent.  Due to this unusually sensible measure; we managed to hold on to our Elms for about another 50 years, and then it struck.

 

It was in the 1970s.  I remember it vividly, it seemed to hit Britain and Ireland at about the same time, which was around 1975 till about 1977, buy the 1980s all the big Elms were gone. 

I remember hoping each one would survive and then observing as each in turn started to go yellow, first in patches, then the whole tree would rapidly turn brown, the bark would peel of like orange peel and all the other trees around it would follow suit.  

Dead sticks of great trees littered our towns and countryside too quickly for us to work out what was going on and for us to gather enough knowledge and resources, to do anything about it, then it was very suddenly; too late.

Dutch elm disease is one of the most serious tree diseases known to have ever occurred.  It is caused by two related species of fungi in the genus Ophiostoma, which are carried by various elm bark beetles, which would include the Large Elm beetle Scolytus Scolytus illustrated here.

Distinctive patterns left under the bark, by Elm bugs.

 How it is Now

Elm trees throw off long underground rhizomes, in much the same way as Blackthorns do.  They spread more by this vegetative method, than they do by seed.  It was this fact which saved some of the most effected species from total annihilation, as young trees would constantly sprout from the roots of infected trees.

Another factor in the tree's favour is that the disease will only effect trees, which are nearing their mature stage, when they are about to start producing seeds.  When they are about 20 foot/ 7 metres high.

For decades many woods had patches of Elm sucker thickets, but most have now been displaced by other native trees.

Many hedges still are comprised of Elm.  A cut hedge never becomes a mature tree, but still many Elm hedges died, I remember.  Not all though, many still remain completely in tact.

Not all species of Elm were effected, some of the smaller species, like Wytch and Slippery Elms hardly ever get it, but the big English Elms really suffered some horrific genocide.

Individual trees were resistant to it, but not many.  I can think of only 3 places where large Elms grow wild in Devon still.

The Elm bugs can only fly 15 miles, it is said; and to my amazement, they are still highly abundant in the Scilly Isles, which are situated more than 20 miles off the coast of mainland Brittan.  I know that for a fact, because I used to live on the Scilly Isles & Elms are everywhere.

I heard a recent report that during the crisis; Brighton town council would routinely remove any branches, with infected yellowing leaves and this simple measure saved their Elms, to this day and formed a blue print for a simple and effective form of treatment, for all Elms in the future.

Some new hybrid varieties now exist, which are supposed to be immune and I was very surprised to see just how many large Elms line the streets and parks of The Hague, in the Netherlands.  The very place, from where the problem arose.

My Efforts to assist the Elm

Elms are now very rare and collecting baby trees is really only possible from suckers.

Every year I only ever collect a few, as a large Elm population would now look unnatural.  Also I have no idea if they will reach maturity.  Many are suckers from fully grown surviving trees, but many are suckers from hedges and some are from where the great trees were killed off and still exist as big clumps of suckers.

Time will tell, I suppose.

The young sapling, shown here to the right and in the two pictures below; is one I planted about ten years ago.  It is doing very well and last year it even through off its own first sucker.  In fact the Elms transplant quite easily and grow just as fast as any of our other native trees.

Elms have this distinctive corky looking bark and their leaves and branches sprout in odd-opposite fashion from the main trunk or twig.  The leaves do the same.

 

Collecting Elm 

I have found a patch of woods, near Horrabridge in West Devon; where Elm suckers sprout abundantly, from parts of the forest floor.  If I just scrape away the soil, from around the base of this particular selected young tree; you can see the long rhizomes, from which many young trees sprout.  A nice chunk of rhizome, like this should take quite easily and hopefully help assure the Elm's survival, for future generations to see and I hope that our future generations will have learnt by our mistakes and to never let anything like this happen again.

Experimentation; Frozen Roots are OK!

Frozen Roots are OK.  Dried out roots are not!

 I had been taught that if you let the roots of dug up trees freeze; it would kill the trees.  Garden centres usually give this as important information, as do tree-people.  But I have proved that it doesn't matter if they freeze, just if they dry out.

I had always been suspicious of this concept, in the same way I am sceptical of the 'Big bang Theroy'.  Oh, and the EU.

My scepticism arose from a curiosity; as to why, if this were so; did baby trees not die, when there was a deep, prolonged and penetrating frost, which froze the ground solid, way deeper than their little roots went.  Also many trees have shallow roots, often being exposed above surface level.  How come they weren't being killed off routinely in the cold weather?

One obvious factor to this is that cold weather in the winter is usually 'dry weather'.
If the wind is blowing from the South West then it's usually mild and raining, but if the cold air is blowing from the East, then it is cold and dry.  

I know from bitter experience, that if the roots dry out; the trees usually die, so I always keep them in plastic bags with a few damp leaves, to keep the moisture in.

Many times the whole bags containing baby trees have frozen solid.  Where the individual trees could not be separated or even removed from their bags, as they were all stuck together with the frost.   
The last three winters were bitterly cold, with temperatures getting down to -20-degrees C, but all those trees were fine.  Even the ones that had not been planted for months and were out for repeated heavy frosts.

I have been keeping a purposeful eye on these trees that had been frozen and all were fine, which in my book; proves my theory and now I have no concern when the temperature drops, but I always take very special care never to let the roots dry out.