Bog Myrtle & Peat

I have created heather! Well, I didn’t exactly do it from scratch. Four months ago, I planted a packet of “Speyside Heather Seed” in a tray under my window. After a fortnight, something emerged. I watched its progress avidly, but it soon emerged that it was some weed or other. A slug ate it and I forgot all about it. My interest in the project diminished tremendously. Something else grew, but it had round leaves and was also eaten by a slug.

The heather seeds were so small that I had started to doubt whether or not I had actually planted anything at all. It was only when I happened to be looking at my juniper cuttings (which are actually putting in roots!) that I noticed a tiny scrap of green on the otherwise naked black compost in the seed tray. The seedling has taken all this time to grow just 9mm, but it is heather and one day it will be planted out on the Chayne. I sowed the seeds so that I would be able to learn about how heather grows. The only thing that I have learned so far is that it grows unbelievably slowly.