An acre of land to do what i like with???

If you have a goat about, you need the shields.

 

Personally I too would go for the tree shields, it stops all manner of animals damaging the lower trunk on your young trees; squirrels, rabbits etc can cause a lot of damage to young trees by gnawing at the bark which can lead to the death of the tree.

I remember planting approx 50 trees and over 2500 hedging plants at the fishing lake I used to manage, 'all' had either tubes or spiral guards around them!!!, it took me about 2 weeks to complete all the planting and putting the guards on ; which were necessary as there are a lot of rabbits and squirrels there.

That was about 6 years ago now and as I still visit the lake occasionally its very rewarding seeing the trees and the hedge establishing; the hedge is a mix of hawthorn, blackthorn, hazel, holly and oak and the trees were wild cherry, rowan, silver birch and alder.

 

I would strongly advise you to get the tree guards. A pound each isn't a bad price for retail.

If you don't, you will effectively be gambling the cost of the trees. They may be fine without guards if there isn't much wildlife in the area (but there will be), but if you want to give the trees the best possible chance, its definitely worth protecting them.

 

OK Thanks for your advice folks :D
Have just ordered the native tree collection with tree shelters also ordered a wild service tree and an English yew with shelters. Anything else I plant I am going to try to do from seed. If anyone has any suggestions please feel free :yess:

 

Just planted 7 trees there today with the shelters :D
I am a little bit worried about the oak and service tree though the soil where they have been planted was clay all the other trees near by seem to bring doing well though so will have to wait and see.
I wish spring would hurry up!

 

Of course we have done something to that scale before, our house is on 2 1/2 acres. Why are you planting more trees??? Looks like there was enough of them. Some pretty shrubs of various season flowering would have been nice. ---and easy to care for. Also some plants for birds, such as shrubs with berries for the birds. There are also beautiful conifers to soften edges out there.

 

I'm plantings more trees coz there is so much field there. Most of the field is not in the picture so maybe it looks smaller than in person. I could plant another twenty or thirty and still have field left.
I would not want to plant any conifers there, too many of them in England as it is! Lol will be planting native shrubs and wild flowers in good time :D

 

Hi, as we're in National tree week it might be worth checking to see if your local council is giving away trees free, I've just got 5 (well 10 because my father-in-law got some too and gave me his - nice man :D) from our local council. When I lived in Northwich, Cheshire you could get 3 from them or 5 hedging plants :thumb:

 

I gather in this area, with all the trees your planning, that the dropping of the leaves, after they have gotten huge does not matter, to clean up the leaves.

In my front yard alone, I have 22, 180 feet tall trees, we hate the fall. The leaves are unreal. Looking at what we can cut down.

 

It's not really native, but if I had that kind of space I would go a bit mad and splash out on a Paulownia tomentosa.....................



http://wildflowerfinder.org.uk/Flowers/F/FoxgloveTree/MarkSmyth_Paulownia_tomentosa_tree_p2.jpg

 

Think of the leafmould you could make with that lot :D :thumb:

 

Sweetie, after 22 years with this, we have enough LEAFMOULD.

 

You could export it to Leafmold impoverished areas like Birmingham