After the path making and tree planting yesterday I had to go back this morning.

A Marshian had found 3 Great White egrets. The day after we’d been out there.

So I grabbed a few twigs and a bough from trimming a willow alongside the old path on my way to the new one.

The path was really well defined and all the prints of yesterday’s stompers were evident. Hard to believe this didn’t exist last week.

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The cardboard looks unsightly. I think it needs more to be an effective mulch but it needs to blend in too. I’m sure it will be ok. I have my fingers crossed.

I planted all the twigs I’d collected, some pushed into the ground and others laid flat in the mud. I wonder which take? Or will all of them?

The bough was thrown into the ditch to join the others. That should help slow the flow, even more when the willow roots.

On the way home I sat at the bench and sat looking at the willow there. It might well be one that I planted. I have planted so many over such a long time I can’t really be sure. But as I’ve been sticking twigs into the ground since my kids were small it might well be.

I wondered about pollarding it. Or is it repollarding?

I quite often snip all the twigs off small trees to start them off as pollards.

Pollarding that tree now would generate all the twigs and boughs we’re going to want over the next few weeks. And it would be a lot easier than waiting for it to start to collapse

I then went to Fobney Island. There are some lovely willows that sprung up when the island was first dug out. They were seeds that blew in when all the ground was bare. The rare perfect opportunity for them to germinate. And they’re all different colours of bark and leaf.

I threw loads over the nasty invasive crassula to help shade it out and I took loads more over the marshes and poked them into some old ditches to help slow the flow.

The meadows are drying out at an alarming rate. This won’t make much difference, but it will make some.