Trusted Tree Trimming & Pruning Services in Carlisle

Yes! Your young trees will be hardened off prior to your purchase (brought outside to feel the wind in their leaves etc). They will be acclimatised and accustomed to the local climate. Once they have arrived at their new home, you can keep them wrapped for a few days, but once unwrapped, they need to go straight into the ground. Have a look at the page of Our Trees that are available.

Like any new plant, trees and hedging plants need a balance of nutrients and water, protection from being grazed or browsed and protection from stems being damaged. As they are relatively small, they are also sensitive to competition from surrounding vegetation. Some pre-planting management can make life easier. In a forestry situation, planting plots are usually either sprayed with herbicide, and/or small mounds created into which the tree is planted. This helps establish the plant and makes them easier to find for subsequent weeding. Protection from grazing/browsing animals can be provided by suitable fencing, or if smaller numbers of trees are concerned, by tree tubes. Tree tubes have the advantage of also providing a better growing environment for young trees (which is especially important with late spring planting when drought may occur). On exposed sites however, once trees pop out of the top of a tube, they can get damaged when they are blown against the top edge of the tube. With our experience of the local area, we are well placed to help advise on a specific plan for establishing trees and their subsequent maintenance, so just get in touch.

Coastal planting is perhaps the most difficult to deliver, as the air is usually heavily salt laden, and this can significantly affect many trees. The best option is to look around the area the trees are to be planted in, to see which species are just surviving and those which are growing well. Oak, holly, hawthorn, rowan, willow, Scots pine and birch are likely to make up most coastal planting. Where there is a bit more shelter, such as cleuchs and gills, other species like bird cherry might be included.

As with any project, it is best to look to plant trees which would grow well in the ground conditions and exposure of the site. For example, a heavy clay soil would usefully grow oak or beech, where as a dry, exposed site would favour birch and possibly pine. In order to help find the best tree for your project, if you can send up some photos of the areas you are looking to plant, and some of the natural flowers that are growing there, we can use aerial photos combined with our extensive knowledge to help develop a viable planting scheme with you that would meet your community project objectives.

Where possible, we will try and collect seed locally from trees which are good examples of their species. We will try and collect from a range of individual trees, so as to get some genetic diversity in the collected seed. We keep records of where seed is collected from, so we will be able to locate the seed source. Trees do not always produce a good crop of viable seed each year. Also, the practicalities of collecting the large volumes of seed required mean that we will buy in seed from a national seed supplier. This might also be required for seeds which have a long dormancy period, or where it is difficult to break the seed dormancy cycle. Where we do this, we will always seek to source seed from as near at hand as possible. Sometimes it is possible to get seed collected from Dumfries and Galloway, but at other times, we need to work with seed from further afield.