On our three and a half acres we have many, many trees. Scores were planted in an empty field by our predecessors over their twenty year tenure. We have tended self-sown seedlings, planted a couple of hundred Woodland Trust whips and a dozen or so specialist standards. Only a few hedgerow survivors predate this activity and the elder is an Ash
She has seen so much that she doesn’t stir easily. June starting and she is only just thinking of leaves. But she watches quietly, over the Mistle Thrushes recently nesting in her boughs, and (maybe) knocking down the young Magpies who harass them.
She sits on a hedge line. In the field beyond her stands a solitary oak, the sole survivor of an older hedge. The rest of the field is a bit sparse, having been resown with rye grass four years ago. And now the nettles have moved in
So it all has to be killed off
Ploughed up
and started again
We do preserve an area so the Ash can avoid having her roots ripped through
and continue her watch
Gribin Isaf 