SIMON TREASURE wrote: > ...I use sycamores as my backbone trees as they are very resilient and > keep going when others fail. they are part of all my planting, which > includes Hawthorne and downy birch as well as those listed earlier. > > I use scrub willow on the western side (westerly gales are the > killing winds) together with elder, fuscia and ribes to create a > diverse shelter belt. I under plant with dog rose and rugosa to > establish a naturalised planting biodiversity as quickly as possible. > 35% of the planting is native orkney stock propagated from the most > ancient northerly woodland in the uk , the magical berriedale > woodland in hoy. Your planting certainly sounds very interesting, Simon. I had a look at your website but was somewhat disappointed to find that there were no pictures of your developing woodland — or none that I could find, anyway. What sort of height have your trees reached now? Norman Tulloch