Lake District Trees

When I walk up the lane I can look over the low wall into the wood and see a grove of alder trees set about a wet area around a beck. They wave their branches to the wind way above my head. I planted these trees years ago from seed, first grown in seed boxes made from wooden trays thrown out by a baker, then transplanted into a plot of land, then lifted and planted again where they grow now. Their rate of growth was extraordinary, and the losses almost nil. Yet the seeds were quite tiny.
Things to do in the lake district
Although alder is a broadleaved deciduous tree it bears its seed in woody catkins rather like cones. It is a common tree in wet areas. Locally the trees are 'ellers' which is a remarkable survival of its Norse name. Alders can thrive in boggy areas where the roots of most species of trees would 'drown', because the surface roots develop nodules which contain the mycelia of a fungus with the help of which the tree can draw nitrogen from the air. In the Lake District the tree was highly rated for charcoal making, and this was much used in local gunpowder works. It coppices very freely and grows fast. It is easily worked and was once the wood used for making clogs.

Alder was once regarded as a valuable herb and Culpeper, the famous seventeenth cen¬tury astrologer physician recommended the leaves for burns. He and other herbalists suggested that leaves put on bare feet 'galled by travelling' will greatly refresh them. But I like Culpeper's final suggestion: 'The said leaves gathered while the morning dew is on them, and brought into a chamber troubled with fleas, will gather them thereunto, which being suddenly cast out, will rid the chamber of these troublesome bedfellows.' I am grateful to have had no opportunity to try the experiment.

Planting alders in swampy land is very hard work. One winter day I planted 400 and it was hard graft. 'Slot' or 'notch' planting is simple if the ground is reasonable. It is a matter of thrusting the planting spade vertically into the ground, with the help of a foot, taking the spade out, turning it ninety degrees and repeating to make an Shaped cut. With the second thrust you lever up the flap of sod, take a seedling from the bag with your free hand, push it into the gap, remove the spade to allow the flap to close on the seedling's root, then stand firmly on it. Each operation should only take a few seconds. It does not do your back a lot of good eventually, but I was told to keep telling myself, 'I am planting a wood for my children and my children's children.'

That is the theory of it anyway. But the ground is not normally easy ground. If it was it would have been taken into agriculture. A farmer friend once told me that some stones in the soil were better than manure. They were a great aid to fertility. But his land was not in the central Lake District where this kind of 'manure' is in more than plentiful supply. You thrust in your spade. It goes in a few inches and grates. You try a few inches away, it goes in, you turn the spade ninety degrees and push in again, it grates, and you either try somewhere else or see if you can lever the stone out, in which case what you think is a mere pebble proves a good imitation of a foundation stone for a Victorian town hall. You struggle on and you should keep telling yourself, 'I am planting a wood and getting a double hernia for my children and my children's children.' When things are too bad to use a spade then it is necessary to plant with a mattock. On really stony ground swinging a mattock can guarantee to jar every bone in your body. Much of that and even your fingers will find it hard to hold a pint mug afterwards.

But a nice rush bog for alder planting is something else. Walking on it is bad enough. You try to push in the spade with a wellington boot dragged out of the mire and the mat of moss covered rush roots sags inwards and remains unbroken. It is like trying to push a putty knife into an inflated rubber tube. So you develop a technique of lifting the spade high and spearing it into the bog to penetrate the top root layer, and then you jump on the spade to get it squelching deeper into the black heavy clinging mire below. This has taken a lot of effort, and you have to turn the blade to make another cut. Your troubles are not over for when you try to lever up the flap, wet suction holds it like a vice. Swing on the spade handle and at first it refuses to move, then it opens with a rush and a slurp, catching you unawares. Do that 400 times and it takes 800 spear thrusts, foot extractions and jumps, and 400 levering and a liberal plastering of mud. But the final results are impressive. The alders grow so fast that, as my forester used to say, you have almost to jump back to avoid having your hat pushed off.

The grey alder, Lanus incant, a native of Scandinavia and central Europe, is an accommodating cousin to the common alder. Because of its ability too to fix nitrogen from the air it can grow well in poor soil where other trees could not survive, and it does not necessarily require wet ground. I have planted hundreds on tips of industrial waste. Else¬where in Britain they have been used successfully for planting on coal tips. The catkins are larger than the common alder and they appear earlier any time from the end of February and they are one of the first welcome signs of spring.

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Adrian vultur writes for Things to do in the lake district

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