Well, it has officially been a dry January….. not just for those carrying out New Year resolutions, but also in terms of rainfall ?️
We’ve been examining the historic rainfall records held by the Met Office for the monitoring station at Manston, and it has certainly been an unusual month – a mere 15.6mm (0.6″) of rain, compared to last January when we had 90.5mm (3.6″). In fact this was the driest January for 22 years!
So what does this mean for the woods? We are sometimes asked where our water supply is, and we point at the clouds…. so a lack of rain can be an issue for our young trees.
However we counter this by planting saplings (generally no taller than 1.5m), which need less water to establish. Thanks to our homemade mulch mats and woodchip, precious moisture is retained; and by removing competing vegetation around the planting area, our young trees can maximise the benefits of all available rainfall and sunlight ?
These methods appear to be working in terms of the survival rates, but that won’t stop us doing a rain dance!