Old Apple Orchard Cairn

Cairn and Terrace '05

Adam: Years ago I read a series of books all about a modern day man’s journey into another world using a large Cairn in Scotland as his portal. Since then I’ve wanted to build my own cairn.
On this land there are terraces built for hazel and apple trees. On a search around the land I found an old apple orchard, reminiscent of Celtic Apple isles of immortality. It was on this terrace that I decided to start my cairn, I took the largest rocks from around and built it. Since then everytime I visit it I take a stone along my walk and place it on my cairn. Visit by visit it grows larger.
My plans for this terrace is to gradually plant it up with trees and turn it into a forest. There are some very large pine trees around its edge, and younger ones growing on the terrace. There are also different oak trees, mainly Quercus ilex. There is also some large ash trees nearby, their branches reaching over the ground, where I’ve picked ash keys (seeds) and, later, planted them.
Now all of these little ash trees are growing in pots, but hopefully in the future I can take a few of them and plant them back in the Cairn Terrace. Along with ash trees, I want to plant other varieties too and encourage the trees that are already naturally growing there too. It could become a good place for deciduous broad-leafed trees to start spreading and hopefully changing the balance of this pine dominated valley.

The cairn may not lead to another world but the world around it is changing. I’ll publish more pictures in the future.

A whole forest in my pocket

 

Young Oak

“In 2005 I visited the Brocéliande forest and while I was walking between the mighty oaks and chestnut trees I started picking acorns and chestnuts and collected them in my pockets. This is a gardener’s habit that I have since a long time. I can’t seem to be able to go somewhere without picking seeds and planting them later in my nursery at home. When back to the hotel, I went to my mum’s room and I emptied on her bed my pockets, which just looked like overstuffed hamster cheek pouches and said: Look, a whole forest in my pocket!” -Mika-

 Four years later almost all the acorns and chestnuts that Mika picked that day have grown into beautiful mighty little oaks and chestnut trees. When you look at all the pots together it does look like a miniature forest! Over the next few years we will be planting them on our land to increase the amount of deciduous trees we have, that will create a miniature special habitat where the soil will be richer in humus  and not so acidic as it is now. At the beginning of their journey in the wild we will be helping them, then it will be up to them and the forces of nature as to what happens next.