After successfully transferring all the germinated seeds to boxes between the three of us, some of our volunteers made a very welcome return after a safe routine was established. A very basic wash station is now in place and everyone keeps to separate pathways.
Having 4-5 extra pairs of hands enabled us to keep on top of the weeding and general maintenance. The germination rate of the seeds gathered was very impressive considering the lack of any real winter weather. We normally assume that between six-ten weeks of cold weather will vernalise the seeds. They certainly didn't get this, but it didn't impact on germination rates...rather the opposite!
We are still splitting our volunteers between tuesday and friday. The plants are getting double the attention they normally receive, which can only be a good thing.

There are now over three beds bursting with life from our transplanted seedlings. The main job over summer has been to keep them alive and thriving. Regular watering and feeding, plus non-stop weeding have kept us very busy.
During the summer heatwave we shade netted everything and watered for hours at a time, twice per week, just to keep the seedlings alive. 
Regular applications of seaweed fertiliser on the seedling beds, plus nettle fertiliser on the more mature plants have certainly helped. A wood chip mulch on the sales beds inhibited a lot of weeds and thereby lessening the workload.

After hours of weeding etc.. it is always satisfying to lunch in a nice area. We moved our lunch spot to our new orchard/meadow area. This gave up to six people more space.
The meadow has only recently been strimmed. Prior to the strimming, at the height of summer, it was a 2-3 feet high swathe of summer flowers. Lovely to sit in this oasis of calm, listening to birdsound and surrounded by nature at its finest.
Seed gathering has been underway since July, with the bulk still to be gathered this Autumn. Our regular work continues during this extraordinary year.  

Chris, plus Anne and i are continuing to maintain the tree nursery in these difficult times.
Regular checking of the stratification boxes has yielded another 7-8 more bags of germinating seed. There are only 12 bags left now. Indeed, 8 of these are 'slow' germinating seeds. We therefore hope/expect only a few more bags to produce germinating seed before the end of April; which is effectively the cut-off time for germination.

Anne has hosed down the trees every week for 2-3 hours and we have put all the baby Yews and Holly into trays, plus re-potted about 30-40 of the Hollies. 
We are experimenting with a wood-chip mulch across half of the purging buckthorn and Hawthorn stock, to see whether they fare any better.
The pile of dead branches dumped in the outside bay has all been put into the dead hedge and Chris has mended the lattice-work top of the gate. Jeff currently has the storm battered specialbranch sign in his home, awaiting repair. Perhaps, when restrictions are less draconian, we could tie our sign back to the front fence in a re-opening ceremony?

​Finally, after checking the seedlings germinating in the boxes, i couldn't help noticing around 30 wild service tree seedlings have emerged. What  a success! I hope everyone is well. Don't hesitate to comment and let me know how things are with you. I am aware that wine levels in the Brighton area are a lot less than normal!

Obviously life at the nursery has changed somewhat dramatically in the past few weeks.
Just as we were finishing winter tidying and prun- ing tasks, lockdown restrictions were imposed.

As a consequence, all our volunteers, bar Chris and myself, now have to stay away from the nursery. Luckily we had almost finished tidying and pruning the nursery. The last week we all gathered saw all the fruit trees judiciously pruned and the willow area tidied up. Currently chris comes in on fridays and myself(+my partner Anne) turn up on monday. 
Principally, we check the stratification boxes and water/weed, plus various other jobs. This arrangement seems to just about work at present, as times are quieter now. Saying that, on monday Anne and i were rather surprised to find 15 bags of seeds germinating. As a result of processing these bags the tables(above) are groaning with germinating seeds and seedlings growing robustly. Only 18 bags now remain in two boxes.

The Guelder rose seedlings(pic. right) are looking exceptionally lively. Hopefully this means we will have plenty of seedlings to transplant in June, and therefore more sales stock in a year or two.
Hopefully the lockdown situation will have changed a little by then as the transplanting season represents a far busier time at the nursery. Chris and i may have to rethink the' two days a week with one person on each day' strategy. It is rather a cruel twist that all our volunteers have plenty of time to lend a hand, but an incapacity to actually turn up!
I do hope you are all keeping safe and well. I will  endeavour to provide more regular blog updates about the nursery. Feel free to comment on the blog. This can be also used as an open site to keep in touch with other volunteers and find out how each other are doing. Just use the comments option to let me know what you are up to and comment on each others comments!
​Stay safe and well

We have just started examining the seeds contained in the stratification box. Two weeks in and 10 bags of seed have germinated so far. Hopefully this is the beginning of a successful year of germination.
The germinated seeds are now in a seed tray and protected from predation by wired tops. 

After selling out of all our trees at the earliest period i can remember, we have now almost finished transplanting the junior stock into their new beds. Over two beds remain empty, showing the lack of junior stock coming through, despite increases in seed gathering recently.
It seems we can't keep pace with demand despite constantly increasing our stock!

We took over 30 small potted plants to the seedy sunday event this month. The plants were all sold before 14.00, which somewhat denuded the stall, while providing us with some extra cash. Just as importantly, we had many interesting conversations with members of the public. The event served to enhance our public profile and enable us to inform more people about how to grow trees from seed themselves.
As a result of these conversations we hope to see more micro-tree nurseries set up and more trees grown on in private gardens, school projects, allotments and nature reserves.
​
Finally, the last cutting of old, damaged trees has been made, giving us a pile of timber, which will go into the dead hedging in the wood behind the nursery.

Most of our customers took the opportunity to pre-order their plants in September. By mid-October the long order bed was completely full as more and more orders came in. A very busy sales period ensued, from October until Christmas. This resulted in most of our sales stock being sold; leaving us with a very meagre selection of plants coming into 2020.

Another excellent sales season with an ever increasing loyal customer base demonstrates the quality of our plants and serves as a reward for the attention lavished on them by our volunteers during the growing season.

We are now entering that time of year when our general tidying up begins in earnest. Hazel coppicing has already been dealt with and the hedgerows are half way through their annual cut. Some more weeding around the beds, tree pruning and general repairs will hopefully finish this phase by February, when, hopefully, our seeds will start germinating.

A solid summer of watering, feeding and weeding has meant most of our seedlings remain alive and the more mature stock of trees have gained a fair few centimeters. Beds have been repaired and hedges tidied. Although we still have less than half of our usual stock, due to increased demand, our stock levels are gradually increasing.
​ Most of the volunteers even had time for a picnic in one of our volunteer's woodland, bringing home-made bread, biscuits, pate, quiche and beetroot and potato salads....delicious.

​We are now entering peak seed gathering season. After collecting our first seeds, wild cherry, in July, the pace of collecting has gradually increased. Stratification boxes are filling up with labelled bags of processed seed. We are now just over half way through collecting.

October is normally our busiest month for collecting, which will finish in early November. Hopefully there will be four large stratification boxes full of viable seed by this time and we will then wait until next year for germination time.

Some of the volunteers enjoyed a great day out at Wakehurst place. The azaleas looked glorious and the bluebells in the woodland were wonderful.
It was a little cold but, luckily, the rain held off.
Lunch in the house was nice, but the highlight was undoubtedly a private visit into the millenium seedbank. Wakehurst treated us to a guided tour of their seedbank facility; answering all of our questions and providing a fact-filled and entertaining tour.

The seedlings have been growing nicely in our trays and now is the time for transplanting. Two seed beds full of diminutive plantlets. Ultimately these are our future stock and the plants that will potentially find their way into nature reserves, allotments, woodlands, hedgerows and other sites across Sussex.
By mid-June all the seedlings have been transplanted and now are protected by shade netting until they are more mature.

By mid-March all the volunteers ensured that last years seedlings were successfully transplanted into the 'sales' beds. This left the seedling beds empty and clear.
As the new seedlings won't be transplanted into these areas until mid to late May, we have sown a quick green manure into both beds. Hopefully this will give more structure to the soil.
Similarly, the unused sales beds have been sown with more green manure. There is a lot more space than planted areas this year. Last year the 'beast from the East' froze quite a lot of our freshly sown tree seeds, just as they were sprouting; resulting in a fair few deaths.
On top of this we had probably our most successful sales season in the last ten years. Consequently we have a very limited amount of small plants left and a limited amount of fresh seedlings. 

We have now reached the end of the period of examining our bags of seed that were collected and stratified over winter. Thankfully there was a very high germination rate within the seeds collected. Hopefully they will now grow on in the seed boxes. The tables are now full, which is a good sign.
The poly-tunnel behind the tables has now had a makeover. One side needed the wood painting and the rainwater gathering system refreshing. The other side had completely rotten wood within it and had split in two! After some judicious use of screw and braces the structure is now secure.

An incredibly busy period in late winter resulted in our order bed becoming full and our stock bed becoming empty!
The best ever sales season for our bare-rooted trees proved a little problematic when laying out our stall at Seedy Sunday. We had barely enough trees to fill the table!
All the volunteers enjoyed themselves; chatting to friends, fellow volunteers and customers all day long.
As the last of our trees were sold on the stall we  now look forward to transplanting our existing stock of small plants into the empty beds and growing fresh plants from the seeds we hope are germinating in the stratification boxes.

Gathering seeds for stratification continued apace during October. The final seeds were deposited in a stratification box in November. We collected a very good variety and quantity of seed, filling three large boxes. Let's hope for a successful germination stage next year.

We are trialling some new hessian bags, as pictured, this year. The original bags were sown together by Tig, one of the founders of the nursery, but they are now falling apart, albeit after 20 years of good service.

​

A major construction project was completed in November; our new dedicated order bed. After weeding the area and digging over and sieving the soil, the sides were constructed from cut Ash trees affected by die-back. The trees were stripped of their bark and cut to size, forming a tremendous long bed.

The whole bed is underlaid by mypex and we have added soil from other parts of the nursery to build it up. Customer orders can then be heeled in prior to collection.

All the other beds in use have now been weeded. The site is ready to take new customer orders and begin the winter maintenance tasks.

Tony, seated, takes a well-earned break after building the sides of the new bed.

Almost immediately after finishing the new order bed it is in the process of being filled with orders. By December, two-thirds of the bed was already full as customer orders came in thick and fast. Some new customers, including visitors to our stall at Bentley Woodfair in September, plus plenty of returning customers.
It is so rewarding to see how many of our customers come back when they want more plants, and how many recommend us to their friends/colleagues etc.. 

This year has been an exceptional one in terms of tree sales. Looking out over the sales section of our nursery i can see barely a hundred bare-rooted trees available for sale now...and it's only early December!

I hope we have a successful germination in 2019, to replace the trees now being planted by our customers in woods, hedgerows and allotments across Sussex.