When we moved here, about 8 years ago, there were not many trees or hedges in the top part of the land - really all that was here was a cherry tree, a few very decrepit hawthorns and a line of leyandii. We had come from a house sheltered in a glade of trees and it all felt a bit exposed, bare, and more importantly lacking in birds.
So one of the first things we did was to plant a grove of shrubs and trees along the boundary to the north - amelanchiers, guelders, rosa glauca, snowberries, dogwoods - about 50 of each.
It was one of the most foolish things I have ever done - within 10 days they had become an expensive dinner for the deer, deer that we never saw but which spent their days sheltering in the woods along the river and their nights feasting on my saplings.
We have since double fenced our land in a half hearted way - enough to deter the deer in all but the worst of the weather, but I have never plucked up the courage or amassed the spare cash, to replant the shrubbery.
However, arriving back from London last week, I noticed some brightly turning leaves in the wild long grass along the North boundary and going to look found all these shrubs - obviously resprouted from the deer chewed stumps
They look like 2 year olds, not 8 year olds, but they are surviving in rough grass, giving shelter and berries for the birds, giving a bit of brightness and colour to the dun of the field. I am assuming that, having survived the worst that weather and deer can cause they will flourish and bulk and that, in time, the lower part of the field will gain its shrubby wild boundary.
It made me glad that I never quite got around to grubbing the stumps out . . .
It's amazing what they can eat, rose thorns don't seem do bother them at all. We have a problem with rabbits eating all the good plants and tree bark, but not the weeds!
Posted by: Serendipity | October 17, 2011 at 03:27 PM
A story with, hopefully, a happy ending. Isn't nature just fantastic!
Posted by: Shona Murdoch | October 17, 2011 at 04:01 PM