best place to ask , wild seed supplies

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best place to ask , wild seed supplies

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dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46247
Location: yes

Posted: Thu Oct 06, 22 5:27 pm Post subject: best place to ask , wild seed supplies

i think i need about a kilo of mixed seeds that suit the ground layer of 7 hypotenuse acres of oaks and a wide variety of other trees
that side of the very steep and tight clough does not get a lot of sunshine, nor do forest floors

my cunning plan is to make them into ballista balls and plant them the same way many of the trees were planted

a diverse low layer, long before natural spread might do it, makes sense to me

after a 45 years, i recon there is now enough soil, it was sand and bracken fires until i started to play with it by accident

i am awaiting a new catapult to continue the main trees planting of the sunnier, other, side of the clough to compliment the oaks planting of 20 yrs ago, that is doing nicely as pioneers in enough places to show where the next groups are needed

that made me consider accelerating diversification on the first side to match the rate of the tree stuff

if i have small seeds and big balls i will use a sling or gravity from above, acorns etc are perfect from a denis the menace "toy"
if i can make 0.5 cal mud and seed balls that can cope with the forces of a catapult and have decent flight ballistics, that is going to make it easy, if they have to be bigger for mechanical reasons, string with a patch will swirl them a couple of hundred meters or i can lob them down a slope

shhh just for fun, i know where to get some sequoia seeds and have a perfect place for a clump of them
that might seem odd but the microclimate may suit them in a few years

the ones in balls i saw on amazon were not quite what is needed, nor were the seed mixes
the prices of both were silly as well

who should i ask for what is needed? it is the first time i have tried this, advice and suppliers would be useful

i need wild species seeds for lowlevel mixed woodland ground cover diversity
on a steep slope, lighting on the less sunny side
2/3 oaks and 1/3 very diverse trees from 50 to 20 yrs old, it has about 30 types of oaks from many places, the others are very diverse

a couple of kilos mixed might be better value than ten seeds at a time

Last edited by dpack on Thu Oct 06, 22 5:36 pm; edited 1 time in total

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46247
Location: yes

Posted: Thu Oct 06, 22 5:33 pm Post subject:
or £1 a gram for unnamed contents

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15997

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 22 7:43 am Post subject:
Is there nothing growing there already? I know a few woods that are so dense there is no ground layer, but not many. Sounds as if the soil is likely to be quite acid. Sorry, can't help about seed. We let our ground layer get on with it as it is pretty diverse.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45676
Location: Essex

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 22 7:52 am Post subject:
I might be able to help with hazel and oak, too late for hornbeam isnt it?

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46247
Location: yes

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 22 11:27 am Post subject:

Mistress Rose wrote:

Is there nothing growing there already? I know a few woods that are so dense there is no ground layer, but not many. Sounds as if the soil is likely to be quite acid. Sorry, can't help about seed. We let our ground layer get on with it as it is pretty diverse.

let it happen is a reasonable option, speed that up by a factor of ten or more seems to work for smaller scale geo engineering

a bit like having vetch seeds etc to speed up meadow recovery

the "new" side needs a mix of trees and somebody to carry on in 3 decades or so

i dought hazel would take in the thin"soil" of most of that side, some is reused victorian landfill on a steep slope(ace bottle mine in 1970 but only now starting to stabilise and leach the toxins out)

the 20 yr old oaks have taken on the "natural" corner at the mouth of the clough above the mill site, the very un natural bits are probably best pattern bombed with a variety of trees, there are a couple of mature fruit trees and a space where hazel might take. the more oaks the merrier i recon about 30 named and un named varieties so far

there are bits where some guard trees like birch and ash might help with geo engineering and some bits where the most "brownfield tolerant" are chosen by darwin

ps that side of the valley has been used to teach drystone walling to chaingang kids, that helps with drainage and soil erosion on a few slopes(random walls though

)

long term i am trying for wooded valley, the bit at the top of the clough is "green" it could be better, a bit too much tidy up and pretty flowers work by the well meaning for my tastes, but it is recovering from becoming a nature reserve 30 yrs ago

the steep stuff is mine

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46247
Location: yes

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 22 1:51 pm Post subject:

ps the little side valley would have been perfect for hazel, it has a 25yr old cherry grove, ace fruit that the birds get very early in the mornings

i will have a think about microclimates on the new side

any oaks are very welcome, strength in diversity etc

thinking of what has done well on that side, temperate to warm, drought resistant in summer, damp resistant in winter seems a place to start, pears and oaks have done first recolonisers with maybe the odd larch?

some bits need birch as nurse trees

ps i have not decided as to the fate of a rhododendron on the more established side, it depends on if it is doing invasive or filling a niche, i may carry sharp things and poison just in case

i need sharp things to moider a few trees that are in the wrong place or will pencil better ones near them, not short of trees on that side and 2 of them are right in a capability brown style line of sight( at a guess they were misfires as i have left that open line deliberately

)

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15997

Posted: Sat Oct 08, 22 7:55 am Post subject:

We have hazel on fairly steep slopes with thin soil over chalk. Not the best, but it grows on surprising sites. Birch will grow virtually anywhere and is a pioneer species anyway, so might be worth a try. They are a lovely tree, and can have a variety of uses from broom heads to birch bark containers to carved or turned wood. Oak of course likes to establish in open ground, although we have a number in the wood which seem to be growing, but not well. There are some trees that are ideal for sites such as your bottle mine. You might find this site useful; https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/tools-and-resources/fthr/selecting-tree-species-for-landfill-restoration/

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46247
Location: yes

Posted: Sun Oct 09, 22 8:39 am Post subject:

thanks very useful info

the stuff on the slope is loose and uncapped but the stuff in the two mill dams has been puddling for 5 decades

afaik the cap on them is broken stone/rubble and used as hard standing in places, "weeds" in others

the slope is varied and far from "greenfield", iirc one significant smear is fly tipping with 4 decades of weeds

if laid out flat the whole site is probably about 6 acres(one is done apart from a few extras) and the five acres to do have a huge variety of habitats and microclimates none of which are in the slightest bit natural and all have different challenges

i need to avoid disrupting the bits folk use and the rest they don't use for the obvious reasons, mostly the slopes

Slim

Joined: 05 Mar 2006
Posts: 6612
Location: New England (In the US of A)

Posted: Sun Oct 09, 22 10:57 am Post subject:
I wonder if you should write a reveal of your activities into your will, so folks don't take the wrong lesson of a neglected site become improved and incredibly biodiverse "on it's own" in a relatively short span of time?

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15997

Posted: Mon Oct 10, 22 6:53 am Post subject:
That sounds a good idea Slim. Dpack, look at what 'weeds' are there and see if there are any that might be nice elsewhere. Some like ragwort you don't want to spread, and of course they do pretty well at that on their own. You might find a few gems in there that might do well on other parts of the site with encouragement.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46247
Location: yes

Posted: Mon Oct 10, 22 3:11 pm Post subject:
the new sunny side is unlikely to be added to by me over as many decades as the shady side has been. do my part in one with a view to nature doing the rest might be a sensible plan

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46247
Location: yes

Posted: Wed Oct 12, 22 6:30 pm Post subject:

i have started collecting,

a grove a crabs for a nettle patch where 20 tons of culled chooks were laid to rest in 1973

conkers for the base of the slope

i need lots of mixed acorns(i got distracted by ceps) which are around when i go to find them

the black locust is still on the tree but might be a good choice for the bottle mine smear, not food, ok in bad soils, ace as a pioneer species

i know where to find assorted things on the less sunny side as well, they are localized and should do ok over on the new one if i get the seeds in time

this project is not about recreating a long gone landscape, hopefully it will be diverse enough to become a new old landscape with little intervention

i need to find birch and more acer varieties, sycamore is a semi native in the clough(grown for rollers for textile machines is probably why it is common in west yorks), maples might be nice on the sunny side and should do ok

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15997

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 22 7:05 am Post subject:
I would be surprised if birch didn't turn up of its own accord; it seems to everywhere else. Some field maple would be nice. Sycamore tends to dominate given half a chance.

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