Now, if it’s mild, is as good a time as any to plant bare root saplings.
We’ve got lots of trees but we can still use a few more. Particularly some local native species that we don’t have any or many of.
We decided to put some Common Alder (Alnus Glutinosa) in a couple of wet spots. We vaguely remember some here when we were children (in the 50’s) but maybe something we did farming, perhaps to many pigs, destroyed them? We also bought some Wild Service (Sorbus Torminalis) for a dryer spot at the edge of some woodland.
If they survive, these additions should enrich the habitat and maybe provide a home for some new species.
Recovered tree guards 
How to protect new bare root saplings? Unless we are planting a thorn of some kind, or the sapling is growing through scrub, (which is nature’s tree guard), we have to do something to protect the vulnerable infant from being eaten or battered to death in play fights by deer.
I’m not kidding, deer love to play and rub on new saplings especially if they are springy and ‘ fight back’. They also enjoy eating all the fresh leaves as they emerge.
Tree guards?
Well, we don’t want to buy more plastic tree guards. For the time being we have a kind of cop-out. Back in 1999 we planted about 50 trees in a new area of woodland to celebrate the millennium.
At that time we were unaware of the effects of plastic in the environment and we used a then normal green plastic tube. These tubes were taken off as the trees matured, so we have a number of old tubes which we can re-use.
It goes to show how long these plastic products survive.
Tree guards second use!
Here is one of the Wild Service we planted in thick brambles (you will have to look closely to see it)
It will probably be all right with no guard.
This Birch, fell in the high winds last week now it will become home for insects, fungi and other wildlife, a little pool of water lies under it’s torn out roots.
The next generation
Young birch. The Birch here all self seeded in an open patch about 20 years ago, and survived with nothing but long grass to protect them. But, there were probably numerous others which didn’t make it.
