Eden Close was our destination today for planting Field Maple (Acer Campestre ‘Elsrijk’) and Ornamental Pear (Pyrus Calleryana ‘Redspire’), two species that look particularly good in the autumn and are also good for bees.
With only the four of us on hand this week, we decided to limit planting to just two trees and then do a bowser run to water in all those trees we have planted so far this year. Watering is advisable for the first two summers after planting even if it has been raining!
Luckily the rain held off; the weather being cool and windy at the outset and decidedly more blustery later on. We set off at our usual time of 9.30 and about an hour later had finished planting both trees. We headed back to Eric’s to swap the empty trailer for the bowser and filled this up with water from the river at Armond Road; for which we have council permission. The tank holds about 500 litres and armed with two cans each we gave each tree three full cans of water; ‘two in the hole, and one at the base’; the ‘hole’ being the watering tube that we put around the bottom of the hole when we plant.
By midday we had emptied the tank and watered about 15 trees of which some were budding up nicely. With the birds chattering and some already nest building, spring is definitely in the air.
Jane Noble
Feb 19
