Tree planting at rosybee

Having finally finished all the construction work we have now started to turn out attention to making the rest of the site as bee-friendly as possible. This will involve planting lots of different plants, shrubs and trees as well as evolving the plant trials areas. We started just before Christmas by planting the following in clumps around the area of the site we are allocating for 'meadow':

- 30 willows which we will pollard every few years to encourage them to grow stumpy with lots of 'whippy' new growth.  That way we well benefit from the catkins for the bees and the colourful new bark for us - 30 cornus - 10 rosa rugosa - 10 currant and gooseberry bushes

We have learnt (the hard way) that everything we plant needs to be protected from deer, rabbits (and our sheep) so we use a mix of tree defenders and chicken wire fencing.

It will take a while before we can see the effect but hopefully it will add much more interest to the site as well as more pollen and nectar.