Septuagenarian

Day 133 #365DaysWild

Our  septuagenarian apple trees were liberated from choking bramble and sycamore in 2011. Poor things have eked out their lives on our grudging sand, occasionally rewarding us generously with fruit.

Their orchard is a work in progress. We’ve cleared this years long grass from the centre. 

2023 saw Ian’s bench installed. What a place to sit in the summer! And a pond made from old floor joists.

We’re now planning for the next year. The meadow lost a lot of flowering plants when the chickens foraged in the orchard. Now we are in our post-chicken stage we are planning for a floriferous and buzzing 2024.

We planted a mixed native shrub hedge last year and most of the little plants made it through. One warm spring day in the future it will buzz and chirrup with life.

We planted mixed evergreen flowering shrubs next to the lane hedge. They’re thriving. My hope is that house sparrows adopt it. I’m going to tempt them with a feeder and seed.

Camassia bulbs enjoy damp conditions. For their own reasons this North American native has flowered and seeded in the most-unlikely ground after we bunged in little bulbs given to us by Linda. Today we scarified the cut grass and cast their collected seeds. Bulbs we’d collected were planted too.

We’re now making a list of wildflower seeds we hope to plant as plug-plants in the spring.