POST ONE

In the car park you will see a notice board with a variety of health and safety and other useful information.  Take a few minutes to see what’s there, then leave the car park following the path at the corner, and head down through the woods.

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Alternatively, follow the path through the middle of the orchard and wildflower meadow. As well as looking great in spring, the meadow provides pollen and nectar for a wide variety of insect life, and the trees provide fruit for anyone who cares to pick some in the autumn, when  it’s ripe.

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Take a few moments to admire the large sculpture, with the hand painted tiles around the base, made by local school children.

In winter the deciduous trees all lose their leaves (‘deciduous’, from the Latin word for ‘to fall’, refers to those trees which shed leaves annually. ‘Evergreens, such as fir trees, keep leaf cover year round) . When a hard frost comes, the last remaining leaves are likely to be damaged by ice forming on and in the leaf, and soon the whole tree will be bare.

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If you look closely at the fruit trees in the meadow at this time of year you can see the buds clearly, from which next year’s growth will emerge.  On the apple trees the fatter buds are fruit buds, and the smaller ones will produce leaves and shoots.

 

The buds on the cherry trees form in little clusters. So you can tell which kind of fruit tree it is just by looking at the buds in winter! Fruit trees are programmed to survive prolonged cold spells when they are dormant. In fact, there will frequently be a better fruit crop after a cold winter.  There is a concern that if our winters start becoming too warm as a result of global heating, we may see fruit crop size and quality diminish, as the hormonal and temperature ‘triggers’ in the tree’s system become confused.

 

Head down to post 2, by the blue bridge over Caldy Brook.