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Continue ShoppingTree Planting
In march this year we planted 110 cell grown trees on the plot of land where we will eventually be building our straw bale home and new workshop for Black Fox Metalcraft. It took around a week to get them all in because in places it's quite steep and also very rocky, so the job required good balance and quite a lot of effort!
We applied for the tree planting grant from the Borders Forest Trust which thankfully we were accepted for. After a meeting with an expert, we chose to plant a variety of fruit trees, plus blackthorn and elder - basically anything that tastes good in a crumble or gin! Then along the river bank we went for Alders and Willows as they cope well with waterlogged soil, then further up where there is more space we put in some Oaks, plus cherries for their beautiful spring blossom. We wanted to encourage a wide variety of birds and animals by providing food and creating habitats.
There was a fair bit of Ash that had died back, and some very young Ash that soon will, so these needed to be replaced. Interestingly, when we had the tree expert out, she spotted an Elm tree which judging from the size of it, is almost at the age where it would be considered to be immune from Dutch Elm disease, so that's quite exciting and of real interest to botanists.
We prepped the ground and let Imogen and Ada (then aged 3) plant 5 each - I think it's really important for young kids to get involved in and understand the importance of tree planting; it will be great for them to watch their own trees grow as they get older too.
The site has been very wild over summer with weed growth, but we've been regularly checking on our baby trees and most have coped very well despite the complete lack of sunshine. We were glad to have improved a small area of land both in terms of a habitat for wildlife, but also given the trouble the area has had with flooding in the past, planting trees along the river bank could be very beneficial in absorbing water before it gets further downstream. We're really excited to see how big they are next year!
On the metalwork front, our Oak Tree weathervane continues to be fairly popular, and the stunning photo of an Italian landscape below features a bespoke tree weathervane we produced based on a customer's business logo.
The photos below show a really interesting bespoke murals and gate project we designed and created for a customer in Cumbria a few years ago, showing an Oak tree throughout the seasons. It was huge in scale, about 8ft tall, and is something we're really proud of.
