Trees Grow Great in Caithness.

It was brought to my attention a few months ago from the minutes of a local community council meeting relating to  public input on a new community use of a piece of land in the village of Lybster, of a suggestion from the member of the public to plant a community orchard. The minutes of this meeting were posted online. Regarding the suggestion from a member of the public of planting an orchard, it was more or less shot down & the committee minutes stated that "trees don't generally grow well in Caithness” & suggested there would be little in the way of return because of this & our short growing season.

Trees actually grow very well in Caithness. Some quite exceptionally well. Other species will also grow exceptionally well once the shelter of other trees is established. One of the notable features of Caithness is that although it is currently largely treeless, one only needs to look at some of the remnants of natural woodland & older estate plantings that can be found for example in Dunbeath, Latheronwheel, Lybster House, Olrig Estate, Thrumster, Berriedale & many others around the county to see what has & can be achieved. That's without counting the monocrop coniferous plantations of the Forestry Commission but, even those show that coniferous trees grow well here & certainly there are some good examples of replantings of prior monocrop like that of Dunnet Forest which surely should have crushed this myth long ago that "trees don't grow well in Caithness".

Quite simply, it is a myth that trees do not grow well here. This Caithness Field Club Bulletin from 1982 written by Mrs. J. Campbell goes some way to "scotch the myth” by using a very simple example of trees growing well in & about Wick.

https://www.caithness.org/history/articles/deciduoustreesincaithness.htm

Indeed there are some beautiful specimens of trees growing in Wick. We also know from the historical records like the 19th century Statistical Accounts that trees were even fairly recently much more abundant in Caithness. There is also plenty of evidence to show the county was abundant in trees much longer ago than that.

I myself was told on numerous occasions in the beginning that "trees don't grow well Caithness" & it wouldn't be worth my time trying. I could see in the recent decade or three before us arriving, there were wee smatterings here & there of folk having a go planting trees in gardens & on their crofts, most looking quite fabulous nowadays. Suffice to say, this hasn’t been suggested this to me recently. 😄

An edge of part of our woodland with roses, elder, sweet chestnut, birch & alder.

Perennial kale growing in the woodland under a mix of native & fruit trees.

Some fine logs being harvested, cut & split for firewood from woodland thinnings.

When searching for land for our project many years ago, we were particularly looking for poorer land that could be regenerated. The croft, whilst some parts were fairly well drained, the bulk of it was poorly drained rush pasture, not much use for too much else bar rough grazing but, great for growing trees. Establishing some pioneer species on this sort of ground completely changes the soil in time making way to plant plenty of productive fruiting trees & shrubs & perennial vegetables.

Since we've arrived those years ago, we've planted about 1000+ trees & shrubs per year & are making our way to about the 20,000 mark now with many acres to go & in that short time I've learned a few things about growing trees in Caithness, sometimes the hard way but, most of the time, pleasantly surprised how well many species have grown.

The introduction of trees onto the land brings other welcome gifts. Wood blewits (Lepista nuda) are now a prevalent naturalised species that arrived of their own accord that fruit amongst the leaf litter on the croft in autumn. A choice edible.

It is true that our growing season is shorter than our southern neighbours but, it is also longer than our northern neighbours. Glass half full an aw that! 😉 Some might be interested to know there is much work underway establishing woodlands on Shetland with some success & they have a far harsher climate & much shorter growing season than our own. Reykjavik, Iceland's capital at 64°N I'd wager from what I've seen has an urban tree density greater than that of even Wick or Thurso. Iceland also has a National Forest, Hallormsstaðaskógur in the eastern side of the country.

We have just got to use the assets we have & work within those parameters. The growing season differences nowadays can be easily observed simply by looking on social media or watching gardening videos on the internet. I often get a good laugh about how far ahead some of my tree growing & gardening friends further south can be with their trees & plants. But, the reality is that by improving the microclimate we can make up some of the difference. We are starting to see the effects of this now even just 15 years on.

Establishing a microclimate with species that grow exceptionally well in our area can go some way to mitigate our 3 main challenges of growing in Caithness which are, wind/exposure, the shorter growing season & browsing pressure. This microclimate can be achieved by densely planting interconnected islands of trees like downy birch, alder, willow, rowan & aspen then interspersed with others such as hazel, elder, guelder rose, hawthorn, blackthorn, sea buckthorn, holly, small-leaved lime, bird cherry, wild cherry, poplar, oak, beech, sycamore, wych elm & others. The densely planted islands of exceptional growers quickly establishes shelter as well as the mycorrizal fungal network required to really make a woodland flourish. These dense plantings can later be thinned & an understory added for production of food for both humans & wildlife & other products.

Laccaria laccata is an edible, ectomycorrhizal fungus that forms beneficial symbioses with certain species of trees. Here they come up by the hundreds underneath some of my beech trees in autumn.

The ancient practice of silvopasture wherein trees for wood products or fruit are deliberately integrated with grazing pasture is another method likely to work very well in Caithness which could greatly maximise output of land if plenty of shelter species were also established around the site.

Browsing pressure remains a problem all over Scotland. There are many examples now showing that a bit better deer management greatly improves success of natural regeneration of woodland like that seen at Glen Feshie & other estates in Scotland.

This year, besides the usual Roe deer, we had Sika deer also now frequenting the croft. Good news habitat is expanding, but, not the best news for tree growing. We've had mixed results using guards & different methods of dense plantings. Deer fencing being prohibitively expensive, I dreamed up a new experiment earlier this summer after observing how deer react to living willow fedging. I think I possibly finally have enough long willow rods to construct a living willow deer fedge, perhaps enough to fedge a ¼ acre or so as an experiment. The fedge of course will also provide a bit of shelter, put the deer off as well especially in summer when it will grow to twice or more its height as well as produce copious amounts of biomass for both wood chip, mulch & fuel.

What about growing fruit?

Sure, why not?

Gages growing on the croft just after midsummer.

Gages beginning to fill out & ripen a few weeks before harvest.

These ripe dessert gages are ready by mid-September & taste a lot like very ripe honeydew melon straight off the tree. Deer often snack on the ones on the lowest branches.

Surplus gages stuffed with mint, garlic & chillies from the garden & canned in a vinegar & brown sugar syrup make a tangy condiment alongside curries.

One of the 20 something apple trees now fruiting on the croft.

Mid-season apple 'Charles Ross' produces a good crop of juicy apples in mid-October.

Mid-season apple 'Limelight' in a hedgerow producing dessert apples.

A dwarf apple I imported from my garden in Edinburgh is trained up the corner of a garden shed producing many apples every year.

An apple grown from seed growing in our hedgerow has been producing a heavy crop of apples for some years now that are excellent for making apple butter, chutney & cider.

One of 100's of currant bushes dotted around the croft. Some so heavily laden at fruiting time the weight of the fruit causes the branches to droop to the ground.

Our sloes which are taken quickly by birds are substituted with blackcurrants to make a festive blackcurrant gin.

This tayberry plant scrambles up through the nearby trees producing copious amounts fruit.

A small 3m x 10m stand of summer raspberries provides enough fruit to preserve enough jam to take us through to the next harvest.

Every year, a few more pears appear on some of the trees. In time, the better the microclimate gets established, the more likely it gets a decent crop will come of these.

Its been a patient wait as hazel needs some well timed cross pollination but, finally, some nuts are being produced on the oldest trees.

Highly underrated alpine strawberries make a great ground cover, producing plenty of fruit for making preserves or strawberry gin as I did this season. Less bothered by birds than larger runner strawberries but, the birds also do a good job of seeding these around the croft for me.

Regarding the orchard suggestion to the community council, I think this was a wonderful suggestion. In this age that more people increasingly expect instant gratification & reward from their efforts, I'm always cheered by those that can envision the (literal) fruits of the long game not just for themselves but, for many generations after them.

When some think of orchards, they think rows of fruit trees & they would be forgiven for that as this is of course the traditional way it is done in commercial orchards. I don't know how big the piece of land is in question in the village but, a very productive woodland garden can be created even in a modest sized back garden or allotment.

An edible hedge could be planted to create shelter. This could include hazel & cobnuts or filberts, currants, gooseberries, elderberry, aronia berry, amelanchier, jostaberry, rosa rugosa, honeyberries, blueberries mixed with a few native trees & the like & inside of that many cane fruits such as raspberries, blackberries, loganberries etc. could be planted. In the middle, an interspersed planting of well selected varieties of apples, plums, damsons, crabapples, hazel, sweet chestnut & cherries could be planted each with their own "guild" of beneficial nitrogen fixing, edible & medicinal plants & even edible mushrooms & tuber crops as an understory.

It is true it would take some time to establish but, it is certainly not true there would be “not much return”. In my own experience, we already have an abundance of fruit & other woodland products & some of those becoming more than we even know what to do with even in this short frame of time. I also know others in the county that have also managed to establish some very productive fruit gardens indeed.

All that said, if you are part of a local community group thinking of doing an woodland garden/orchard nearby I'd be happy to donate many native trees, soft fruit shrubs & cuttings & also perennial veggies & herbs & mushroom spawn. Feel free to contact me. 👍

Some Tree Propagation Notes from 2022.

Air pruning beds.

Repurposing a goose & chicken bedding compost bin to air pruning beds.

The wire mesh is covered with a layer of seaweed to prevent the compost from falling through the mesh.

Topping the bed up with a compost mix.

Downy birch & elder tree seedlings planted July 8, 2022. Later mulched with leafy summer willow chip & covered with netting for the 1st month to prevent the blackbirds from pulling out the seedlings.

Taken exactly one month after planting above, on August 8, 2022. I expect these to be 30-45cm by the end of the season & ready to be planted in winter/early spring during the dormant season as bareroot trees.

Stratification?

Tree seeds just germinate when they want to. Proven by my Korean Pine, Small-leaved Lime, Black Mulberry, Cornus kousa & Schisandra chinensis this year that decided the time was straight a way despite what the books & the internet say! 😄

Annual Wych Elm round up.

On Father's Day nearly every year, I take my partner to his favourite fish & chip restaurant for tea. Strategically parking under a stand of mature Wych Elm trees in the car park usually yields plenty of seed to sweep into a bag by the time we leave the restaurant that has collected on the bonnet & windscreen. This year I also collected some from an old stand of trees that were planted around a local archaeological site in the mid- 19th century.

Other seed collection this season also included whitebeam, rowan, bird cherry, horse chestnut, hazel, downy birch, elder, hawthorn, common & Italian alder amongst others.

What's on now…

We are currently taking orders for willow cuttings including willow rods for living willow fedge or structure making & bareroot downy birch & elder as well as cuttings of blackcurrants on offer this season as well. See the tree & plant page for more details.

Living willow fedge during the dormant season.

1st growing season after planting a living willow fedge & archway leading to the mushroom growing gallery.