This has been the coldest spell we’ve had in several years. Freezing temperatures both night and day, for several weeks. The sky’s have been clear; Blue cloudless days and stunning starry nights. I’m hoping that I haven’t lost many plants, I think the minimum we reached was about -8 degrees Celsius. Everything looks really dessicated, although it’s not been windy, everything is freeze dried. Despite the time of year there have been several wild fires on Skye and the outer isles, leading to road closures in the middle of Skye last week. I don’t know whether they were deliberate (muirburn to regenerate grazing) or accidental fires.
My wasabi has died back, and the luma apiculata’s leaves have dried up. I forgot to wrap the unknown citrus in the polytunnel and that has shrivelled leaves too. Hopefully these will all sprout back in spring, I do hope so. There was a little snow but most of it melted before it froze again. There is snow on the tops of the hills still, which look like Mt. Fuji.
Ice crystals in grass
As the ground is frozen, I can’t really get on with planting anything, but I’ve made some progress with coppicing. I’ve cleared a little of the alder copse at the top by the cut through. I cut those between the windbreak and the cut through, so the regrowth should have a bit of shelter.
Alder coppice at cut through
Some of the birch are getting pretty big now. I have taken out some of the lower branches; singling the stems so they will make straighter logs in time perhaps.
Singling birch
Further down again I singled out more alder along the top of the river bank and in the pond area, also taking out completely one multistemmed tree. I think that’s all I’ll do for this year. I don’t want to overdo things, especially until I know how well the regrowth will do. We won’t have enough to be self sufficient in wood I don’t think, however it’s nice to feel like we’re making a step in that direction, especially with it having been so cold recently.
It always astounds me at the end of the year to realise that we are in the twenty first century! I haven’t quite got used to the 1990’s yet! I haven’t been doing much recently at home. Because of a staff shortage I have lost two of my afternoons off, combined with having extra to organise for Xmas, and poorly cats, it seems that I haven’t been very productive. The weather in November was remarkably clement – dry and cold. December has been a bit more typical with a bit of wind and rain (and some sleet, with a little snow settling on McCloud’s Tables). The polytunnel repair stood up to winds of about 65mph this week, which I am pleased about. I do wonder whether it will stand up to the cat standing on it, but since it was partly the cat that caused the damage I’m not too inclined to be sympathetic if it does go through.
Oca tubers developing at surface
The Yacon and Oca are really dying back. I want to leave them as long as possible, while the weather remains fairly mild, so as to bulk up the tubers as much as possible. I gather that even after the leaves have been killed by the frost, the stems will carry on feeding the oca tubers, and they grow significantly over a few weeks until the stems are completely gone. I imagine that the Yacon is similar. I will clear them out over Xmas, or at least before the frosts come back in January.
Black line of path around hump
The tree field is just bare bones now. I did a bit more digging around the hump, but haven’t had much time and the weather is not conducive to digging. The path is coming on, and will really make walking along it more pleasant when finished. When I go down the hill with Dyson I bring back an armful of kindling or a few larger branches of dry wood for the fire. Once the kindling is in the shed for a few days it dries out nicely and starts the kitchen stove really well with a little newspaper. A good session with a sawbench and bowsaw will be required to cut the branches to length though.
Golden Korean pine, with shelter and feed pellets
I managed to get in contact with the supplier of the yellow Korean pine trees and they think that the trees are just lacking in nutrients. I’m reasonably happy with that explanation – they are quite big for the size of the pot they were in, so basically just needed potting on, or in this case planting out. The supplier sent some slow release feed for the trees which I did use around them when planting them out. Normally I don’t use chemical fertilizers, but I’m looking on this as medicine for the trees, which will help them catch back more quickly. If they do not seem recovered in early summer, I am to recontact the nursery.
I have planted the trees as three clumps of four trees. One lot are planted adjacent to the one that I grew from seed, the others a little higher up the hill. Pines are wind pollinated, so hopefully this will give me a better chance of getting pine seeds when the trees are big enough. I have put tree shelters around each of the trees, which will hopefully stop them rocking around too much over the winter. I also made a start at mulching them, but the weather stopped play again. If I have an afternoon free from the shop, I generally get home about quarter to two in the afternoon, if we have a bit of lunch it is quarter to three before I get started on anything, and it is getting dark at four, so not much time to get things done outside!
Peeling birch
Several of the silver birch have quite suddenly developed white bark. The darker bark has split off revealing really pale bark underneath. Others still have quite dark bark underneath; they may not get pale like this, or they may turn silver when they get older. It seems odd that the bark has split at this time of year. You would have thought it would happen in the spring, as the sap rises, not in the autumn. Maybe it’s like the leaves falling; materials getting brittle and parting company. I’m thinking that I may be able to do crafty things with this lovely material, if and when we coppice these trees in the future. Most of the birch are still a few years away from being big enough to be worth cutting down as yet.
t always amazes me how much things grow during May. The field goes from a thatch of last years’ dead grass to a sea of pignut, grass and bluebell flowers. I’ve selected a few of the latest photos to capture May and some of the ongoing activities to do with the trees and the tree field’
Hawthorne in blossom
This tree is actually in the front garden and was planted in 2008. It has been flowering for the last three years, last year it set quite a few berries. I made some hawthorne blossom cordial this year following roughly the same recipe as for elderflower cordial. It’s supposed to be good for the heart and digestion. Not a strong flavour, maybe a hint of apples over the lemon that is part of the recipe.
Worrying lack of leaves on birch
Last year we started to see a problem with several birch trees. They had previously grown well bar a bit of die back. This however is more than just die back! They do seem to be alive, but the twigs are mainly dead with just a little new growth. I’m going to contact the Woodland Trust over this for some advice. Some of the birch seem fine, and others from different planting years are like this to a greater or lesser extent. I need to do a bit of a survey and see if I can tell whether it is betula pendula (silver birch) or betula pubescens (downy birch) that is affected (or both).
Flowering pine tree
This is the second or third year that these pine (also from 2008) have flowered. I’m not sure if it is a lodgepole pine or scots pine. I have to admit I find the new growth on the pines rather phallic in habit! The red tips are the female flowers (that might develop into cones) and the orangey- brown fingers are the male catkins. Note the wind scorched older leaves. I think this is a scots pine, since what I think are lodgepole pine elsewhere are almost defoliated by the salt wind in the winter.
Monkey puzzle in mulch mat
I’m hoping I don’t regret using this carpet underlay as mulching material. It seems almost ideal – it is from our house in Solihull and was under the most disgusting deep pile orange carpet (that when taken up we used as bearskin props in a ‘flintstones’ scene once, but that’s another story) so reused. It is made predominately from felted jute fibres so biodegradable. It is permeable, so will let the rain soak through for the trees, but is mostly thick enough to exclude light and smother out the grass and other plants around the little trees. The only downside I’ve found is that it is only mostly Jute. It also has a very coarse scrim of polymer fibres, presumably to give it strength (or maybe mouldability – I used to work on automotive carpets which were heat formed). These will not degrade in the short term. I suspect that the grass will grow through and over the mat in the next year and the fibres will be concealed but ever there…..suggestions welcome.
Pignut blossom
This is just a picture showing the density of pignut, conopodium majus, in the tree field. It is a native wild flower here. I have only tried the tubers raw so far, and although pleasant to eat, they tended to give me a slightly nauseous feeling afterwards. I haven’t tried it cooked. I love the dainty blossom which is like miniature cow parseley (of which there is very little in this area). It’s not in full bloom yet, but quite lovely.
Landrover mulch
This patch is where one of our Land Rovers (Lara the croft rover) had been parked for about two years previously. The grass has been entirely shaded out, but there is plenty of pignut and creeping thistle as well as sheeps sorrel and a few buttercups that have survived, all coming back after about a month. Perhaps an example of mortal tree’s ‘a bit blunt’ method of mulching. I don’t think I’ll be encouraging more long term parking in the tree field however….
Bluebell river
The bluebells (hyacintha non scripta) are just about at their peak at the end of May, start of June. They have done really well this year. You can see how they are concentrated at the field edge where there is the remains of a stone wall and ditch, so probably not well ploughed. They also survived several years of being grazed and trampled by sheep prior to the trees being planted (these in 2011). Compare to next door’s grazed field – I bet there are bluebells under there as well! Also you can note that they are quite happy in the sunshine. The ground is so damp, they don’t need the shade of trees on Skye. When we bought the land, I couldn’t even tell that we had bluebells.
Buttercup mulch
I found this plant growth quite amusing. This is one of my ‘orchard’ apple trees, which actually bore an apple last year – although it disappeared before I had a chance at it (crows, wind, dogs….). These trees were all mulched last year, with my favourite sheet mulching method – sheets of cardboard from our shop, overlapped and weighed down with suitable stones. This is quite effective, and lasts about a year. It is quite obvious that it has worked well on the grass, but less well on the buttercups! Whether these were not killed (they do sprout right through when buried in a few inches of soil) or have just spread over the cardboard more quickly than the grass, I’m not sure, I suspect the former. I don’t know whether the buttercups are going to be a problem with the trees however. We try and get rid of the grass mainly because of it’s alleopathic effects – it is known to have a detremental effect on tree growth for this reason, rather than direct competition for resources. I think I’ll try and mulch the trees again anyway, since they are still very small. I still have quite a bit of earth moving to do in the orchard area. I’d like to try and finish the landscaping here this year, so I can get on with underplanting the trees next spring.
SkyeEnt 
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