Bog Myrtle & Peat

I am starting to get bored of planting. It’s a good thing that the season for it is almost over and there are thousands of other things to do instead. The Chayne suffers from the fact that it only has one tiny wood, so scattering single trees and stands of a few dozen across the place is guaranteed to make the habitat more varied and interesting, not only for gamebirds but also for pipits, chats and larks, all of whom I now find unexpectedly endearing and interesting. In the dying days of my planting frenzy, I think I have found a prime spot for another little spinney.

Ten years ago, the shepherd fenced off a small area of rough grass between two converging dykes to create a narrow triangle. She left two holes in the fence and used the enclosure for a couple of years as somewhere sheltered to keep ailing sheep or ewes having dificulty lambing. Now that the triangle is no longer used, it seemed like an obvious spot to plant up for woodcock and blackgame. My budget has been shrinking steadily for the past few months, and I now have no money to spend on more fencing materials to create new woods wherever I want them. As a result, I am having to learn to use existing fences and dykes to my advantage, and this little enclosure is just perfect.

Directly in its centre, a spring bubbles up out of the ground, soaking the surrounding soil and turning over a third of the space into a bog. Taking up a dozen willow cuttings, I jammed them into the wettest areas in the hope that they will come out to create low scrubby conditions for woodcock. On the drier ground, I planted larch, rowan and birch, as well as three juniper shrubs. The hill above the triangle is a mixture of rough grass and cross-leaved heather, and with a little work, this could be premium black grouse country. The terrain leads down a burn towards the boundary, and already I have a vague idea where I’d place the guns…