Last TFL week of the year, Dundreggan 5th to 12th November

Myself and Gordon were, once again, on duty for the last TFL week of 2011.  It’s always great to get back to Dundreggan at some point of the year to catch up with Steve (Morris, Dundreggan project manager) and the trees that I’ve been involved in planting.

This year, due to the nursery move from Plodda to Dundreggan, there were a lot of TFL grown trees to be planted, both in the nursery, and in two of the planting sites.  In total we planted over 2100 trees in the two planting sites, and numerous trees were transposed successfully to their new nursery setting.

From a personal perspective I was extremely pleased to see that some of the aspen and birch had almost reached my head height in the riparian planting area, where we added some hazel, elm, rose and the occasional Scots pine.

We spent three days working in the planting area on the North West of the estate.  From here we had a great view of the mountains of Glen Moriston, and were witness to colourful sunsets each evening.   Here too, some of the birch trees have already reached five foot and it will be interesting to see how the site looks in spring, when the trees start getting their leaves back.

Many thanks to Jill for guiding us through a number of the planting jobs, and for Abby’s help during the nursery day.  It was good to catch up with Bill and Donnie and to spend the week with a great bunch of creative volunteers.  I’m still amazed at how good Grieg’s pizza was.