February Nature Notes

by David Tidmarsh - 17:52 on 16 February 2012

                                       Ken’s Nature notes.

The ever resilient snow drops are cheering us up once again, it must be a very tough little plant, it always brightens up even the coldest and foggiest of mornings. Mind you the daffodils are not far behind, forcing there way up through the frozen ground ready to burst forth with wonderful fresh flowers.
I am hoping to be planting out some new hedgerows this month as part of funding that has been sourced by the Wear Rivers Trust to improve water quality in the surrounding burns. Part of the funding has enabled better path surfaces to be laid, this includes the path down Breckon Hill wood from the Floater Mill pub to the Smiths Arms pub, it makes an interesting pub crawl.
Paths have also been laid near Lambton House on the old recreation areas, if you haven’t been to this area then it is worth a visit.
So we have over four hundred hedging plants to be planted and these are a mix of Holly, Hawthorn, Blackthorn, Dog Rose, Hazel and Crab Apple, if they get left alone it will provide a good mix of food supply and habitat for the birds in years to come.
Jobs seem to be piling up on the conservation side of things and a lack of good weather and shortage of able bodied volunteers and finding time to fit things in is all very frustrating. However it is like any organisation, you can never get enough bodies to help but the ones that do turn out are worth their weight in gold.
At the allotments I have been trying to harvest our willow by pruning it hard back to allow new growth to develop in the spring, these must be one of the best sustainable plants that we grow, as they produce new willow rods year after year if they are looked after.
We have been trying for the first time ever to germinate Mistletoe seed, June had this fancy for mistletoe growing in the garden, you can buy fruit trees with a two year old mistletoe grow on it but they are not cheap, so after the kissing was over, the mistletoe fruits were stuck on some shrubs in the garden, the seed  uses the sticky white flesh of the fruit to adhere to the branches of the host tree  and in a couple of years time who knows, we may have our own mistletoe bunches to be cropped or just admired. These plants are a parasite that takes goodness from its host tree so the trick is to crop it occasionally and not allow it to “kill off the hand that feeds it”.
We are getting over the winter quite well compared to last year, I only hope I haven’t put the curse on by commenting on this mild weather that we are enjoying in the middle of February.
Ken.

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