Hiding Nessie

Been thinking about what the cheapest way is to hide Nessie. She is a bit of an eye sore in all the lovely landscape. So I decided to make a willow hedge around her.

First dig a trench...

Break up soil and refill trench (chicken approval essential)

Plant willow every 15cm....water and wait.

Look what I spotted today....

...inbetween the willow.

Click on the picture for a larger view.

Auf das Bild klicken um eine Grossversion zu sehen.

More trees

Today 250 willows from Germany arrived. After loosing many willows every year which all came from the same place in Yorkshire I decided to try something different this year.

The parcel took 5 days to arrive.

In good old German fashion the parcel arrived neatly and extremely well packed.

To give the trees the best start after the journey I put them in a tub and added some rainwater.

I ordered 150 Salix viminalis and received 188. I also ordered 100 Salix americana and received 111. Thank you for the extras Mr. Scheffel !

Although it was getting dark I started planting around the soakaway. The chickens are doing a good job at scratching up the grass.

Willow tree

Earlier this year I was given two stumps of willow by our neighbour. Rammed them into the ground and although I didn't hold much hope they are doing well.

April 2010

June 2010:

Willow Plant Pots

Rather than planting some of the willow straight outside in March we have 50 cuttings in water that are rooting nicely. They are inside so need to go into soil soon as the roots are getting long. It's too cold outside so we are making plant pots from newspaper to sit them on the window sills until April or May.

For instructions on how to make plant pots look here (youtube video). Ann is making small ones and bigger ones to sit the smaller inside the bigger one. This will make it stronger as willows like a lot of water.

The pots are placed into one of the recycled cardboard boxes that we pick up when we go shopping, instead of plastic carrier bags. An old fed bag, compost bag or bin bag goes into the box to form a waterproof tray.

The pots are lined up and individually filled with compost to get the willows off to a good start before they are planted out.

The trays can now sit on the window sill in a cool room until April and then go outside until they are planted at the end of April or in May, depending on the weather.