Tree Huggers

Our 3/4 acre plot is pretty exposed to the west and north west and Gigha still gets a lot of salt laden westerlies - the hurricane of 31st May two years ago scorched all our young trees then, though most have almost recovered. Jayne has her own native cherry tree which is recovering well now, but almost every leaf was burnt by that storm. We also have too many rabbits and have to protect against them. Izzie does chase and kill rabbits, but they get their revenge by eating anything we plant unguarded.

We have a large strip of wet ground with rush (now sprayed) about 15m wide by 50m long. This ground has to do something useful so it might as well grow wood fuel for us.

We also need to provide shelter for our other garden ground without taking away from the incredible views.

There are two wee copses of trees on the adjacent Mill Croft about 25 to 30 years old so we have worked out what is best to plant for our own coppice on the wet ground at the bottom of the plot from what has done well there. The only species we don't have is sweet chestnut which seemed a surprising choice as it isn't a local tree but has done well there and is great for coppicing. We have avoided Sycamore too.

We've had to abandon our plan to plant a lot of Ash - chalara has done for us there. We planted fifty last year but can't plant any more. We've added fifty Hazel in the hedge mix instead. It is native and local.

The Alder has been very successful, is great on Scotland's west coast and is a good coppice firewood tree so we have a hundred of those. They'll put on two to three feet a year when established. Our first trees planted last year put on 30-50 cm in their first year.

Our 100 metres of hedging, all along our boundary fences,  has been planted as a double row of Blackthorn, Hazel, Hawthorn, Oak, Ash, Crab Apple, Elder and .... Swedish Whitebeam. This last species is salt tolerant and very pretty - I have seen them in gardens in Torshavn in the Faroes and they have to be very wind firm to survive there. So we managed to source some Scottish cell grown stock for our plot.

This year I have managed to find two of my own favourites, both Scottish natives - Aspen and White Poplar so we'll have wee clumps of these in the wetter corners - and they are fast growing and coppice too so can provide wood fuel for us in our dotage.

We have native Scots Pines in each corner and birch and rowan for show. Every house needs to have rowan near the front door. Keeps witches away. Pity we didn't plant it sooner - might have worked for our cowboy builder. Rowan is also Jayne's grandson's name so we have ten of these.

At the top of the drive is a large rocky area with lovely native heath/rocky plants - harebells and bluebells, wild primrose. tormentil and eye bright, wild thyme and now a dozen young Junipers in the sheltered crevices. We have a few broom for the odd dry spot too.

Almost all the trees we've planted will coppice so can be cut back every ten years or so and will provide enough wood for the wood fuelled Esse and our two Danish wood stoves and not block the views. In fact we ought to be pretty much self sufficient for fuel - just hope we have enough strength and energy to cut the trees down, and log them in our 70s cos that's how old we'll be by the time these trees are big enough. Luckily modern wood stoves work best on 3-6 inch diameter sticks, so no splitting will be needed.

We have tried to plant 90% natives - everything else is salt and wind tolerant except the fruit trees which we were given last year.

Tree planting at 60 is an act of faith. You know you're not going to see the full benefits but then if we have to leave a legacy a few hundred trees is not such a bad choice.