Trees!

Repeatedly, we've tried to plant more trees on our property.  We spent quite a bit of money on Tagasaste seedlings and planted them in bare shelter belts.  I went for tagasaste (tree lucerne) for it's wide range of uses - not only is it fairly quick growing shelter tree that won't destroy the paddocks around it like poplars do, but it is also a good tonic and fodder tree for livestock.

Unfortunately, naughty calves got into the shelter belt and ate them down to ground level.

Hubby spent $100 on pine seedlings and spent many hours working out where was the best place for them, digging the hard clay and rock soil, planting them with little stakes and seedling protectors and walking around regularly to water them.

They all died in a nasty hot summer anyway.

We bought several native plants of various sizes from Trade Me and from a garden centre.  We carefully planted them beside the creek, above the usual flood level, carefully staked them too. They got watered daily.

Then we got about two years worth of rainfall in a week.  This actually lifted the entire plants out of the soil and washed them away - I found a couple hanging precariously (with stakes and protectors still attached) on the edge of the bank.

I was given a small mountain of weeping willow switches by some friends who'd been trimming theirs.  I planted them all around the creek.  I watched them and tended them and they were doing well.

Then the same rainfall that took out the natives washed not just them but the land around them away down the creek and the few that survived were eaten by my naughty steers (at the time) who escaped from their paddock.

I have my moments when I truly despair trying to plant anything to hold the banks of the creek together and stop the erosion or provide shelter for my animals in extreme weather.  We've spent ridiculous amounts of money buying trees and taking the time and effort to treat them right and they die anyway.

I've taken cuttings, I've transplanted small trees, I've encouraged the odd crack willow that washes down the creek and takes root - even though I know them to be a pest in the waterways.  My thought is that it could work to stabilise part of the bank and allow me to plant other (better) things around it.  Even crack willows don't stay long enough to grow past a metre tall.

We do have plenty of wild plums and elder trees around the property though.  I've gotten to the point where I'm quite tempted to try encouraging their spread.

I've been told that gorse can work as an effective nursery plant.  It will shelter, feed and protect a young tree growing in it's midst and then when the tree is big enough, it tends to kill off the gorse.  Most of the elder is growing amidst gorse which is frustrating when I'm wanting to collect berries and flowers as I can't get to them, but also in that gorse and elder is honeysuckle, which strangles and buries everything.

We're going to try planting in amidst the gorse next.  I'm sprouting cuttings at the moment.  Wish me luck!