Been busy

All the new hedgerow trees have made it through the winter and are growing strongly. So much so that the wind keeps blowing them over.

The beech's broke bud late in April and they were the last to get going.

The 4 new oaks also made it through the winter and are growing strongly now.




The mountain maple has been defoliated and has come back very well. Every single possible bud point has sprouted. I have massive back budding and a big increase in ramification. Ive also been wiring and hanging weights to improve the layout.


It was defoliated on 16 April and the photo on the right is 21days later. I have already pinched back some over enthusiastic growth.




My larger oak is going crazy this year. Its also throwing massive shoots for the last 3 nodes of every branch making it quite hard to tame. Ive got 3 grades of training wire and I'm pulling the young soft shoots into place early before the set. Its starting to take a lot of wire.

The trunk has put on quite a bit of weight already this year. Its getting 30% over strength fertiliser once a week.








The point at which the oak is cut back is important. similarly to brach cutting a pine. The last buds on the branches are the ones that will grow - so you need to select them so that the new branches head off in the right direction.

I have also been fortunate with some of the budding on my large Scots pine. Its behavior is much easier to work with than the small one. While working on developing nice dense foliage areas Ive cut back some overly long branches and in all cases Ive gotten several nice buds at the cut point.

Also some good buds all the way back into the 2 year old needles. I'm spoilt for choice here. Its behaviour is very close to the descriptions of black pines.

Daily water and lots of fertiliser. Several litres of strong high nitro fertiliser per week.

Ive been experimenting with chicken manure. The tea seems alright. But it clogs up your soil very quickly. I suspect it does strange things to the soil ph.