Barker Plantation Revisited

In the first months of 2023 I spent several days in Barker Plantation, Bransdale, “haloing” native trees: oaks, birch and Scots pine. Removing the competing trees around each one gave it more light and a few seasons to toughen up before the felling contractor arrived with heavy machinery.

The contractors have since cleared about half the plantation of larch and spruce, and the National Trust has started replanting. They were told to leave the native trees standing. Whether the haloing worked is harder to judge, because the survivors on the bare hillside are fewer than I remember haloing.