Pantpurlais

Overall this site is in excellent condition and has clearly been very well cared for by the landowner. The trees planted first are now very large and healthy, and are well established. The trees planted later are smaller, which is to be expected, but they are still doing extremely well. All other planting areas (for example, a small patch of oak planted on a slope by the house, and a couple of rows of saplings planted along a pathway) have almost no dead trees at all.

Deer are present on-site and have attacked saplings, but the problem is not severe and has not lead to concerning losses in the areas planted by us. Our team only saw one sapling killed by deer in our planting areas.

The landowner has found using wood chip as a weed suppressant at the base of saplings very successful, especially if it's been left outside for a year to grow fungal colonies prior to use.

Disappointingly, the meadow has not done well. It has failed to support wildflowers even after being re-sown a second time with a rattle-heavy seed mix. The problem here is the vigorous grass growth, so we need to give this a lot more thought before making a third attempt to establish this wildflower meadow.

The landowner has reported seeing kites, buzzards, roe deer and muntjac deer on or above his property.

We returned to the site outside Llandrindod Wells in Mid Wales in July 2025 to carry out a survival survey of the trees we planted in previous years. Overall, the site is doing amazingly well, with a 95% success rate.

Many of the saplings have put on fantastic growth, especially the oaks. The early pollinator trees like crab apples are four years old now, and top out at 7ft tall. This is great news, as it provides an important food source for pollinator insects early in the year.

Our wildflower meadow hasn’t fared so well, and is very overgrown with grass. We plan to use yellow rattle heavy mix plugs when we maintain to try and break up the grass a bit and give the wildflowers a chance.

The landowner kindly provided some beautiful photographs; the contrast is striking. Even the smallest saplings are starting to look like proper trees now; the guards and stakes are starting to go, roots are down, and the trees are unmistakably at home in the Welsh landscape.

We carried out our survey here later in the season than normal, but the trees were still looking well. The trees planted in 2021 have a 99% survival rate, which is shockingly good and better than we could have hoped for. One theory is that these trees (which came from Thorne Trees) were slightly older than usual.

The trees planted in 2022 have an 80% survival rate. Here we planted smaller bare root whips, including a lot of silver birch and some of these have been consumed by the grass. The small leaved limes, which spent their first night in Wales, in a bath in the local hotel, are doing well!

Overall, the site survival rate was 90% which is still very good.

It was too late in the season to check the wildflower meadow, but the landowner said it had not done particularly well this year.

Common Bird Census (CBC) territory mapping of the breeding birds at Pantpurlais was carried out on 15/06/23. This is the third year we have had a survey carried out here.

Twenty-six different species were recorded to be holding territory on site, which is an increase of three from last year and two more that 2021. Species included: blackbird, blue tit, chaffinch, coat tit, crow, goldcrest, goldfinch, greater spotted woodpecker, great tit, meadow pipit, mistle thrush, nuthatch, pied flycatcher, pied wagtail, raven, redstart, robin, siskin, skylark, song thrush, stock dove, stonechat, treecreeper, tree pipit, willow warbler, wood pigeon, wren

The pied flycatchers, first seen in 2021 are back, which is good news as there was no sign of them during the survey in 2022. Song thrush was a new species but there were two territories of them this year. Tree pipit was another new species here taking the total to 25 species (plus a skylark spotted just off site, just off site). Stonechats with 3 fledged young was good to see.

The area around the site was not surveyed, but house sparrow, house martin, swift and spotted flycatchers are likely to be around the buildings.

Once we had finished sowing the new wildflower meadow we couldn’t wait any longer to visit the two woodland sites we had planted on this farm. Although it was rather early in the year for a site survey we could see that the trees were mostly doing pretty well, with very few dead saplings. The spring buds are beginning to burst open, with the most established trees already outgrowing their guards, especially in the woodland we planted first. 98% survival rate is a remarkable achievement and very encouraging.

It seems our four-legged volunteer in the second photo never left…

Saplings finding their feet during their first summer, surrounded by a sea of buttercups.

Spring or early autumn are the best time to plant a wildflower meadow, and a wind-free day is essential if you want the seed in the right place. Warm, wet conditions are ideal, so we aimed for late April just before rain was forecast to give the seed the best chance of germinating successfully.

The soil here is fertile, which isn’t ideal. The one-acre field was ploughed and power-harrowed to prepare for the seed. We prepared the wildflower seed mix by adding sand to make it easier to sow evenly and to help reduce the fertility of the soil a little. We then sowed the seed broadcast and rolled it in afterwards.

In the first year the wildflower meadow will need cutting in mid-July and the cut material removed to reduce soil fertility. Tall plants such as docks, thistles, and nettles may need cutting earlier before they have time to seed. The whole meadow will need cutting again in the autumn.

Armed with more experience and a group of willing volunteers we returned once more to create a new native woodland in a different field.

We planted 717 saplings in higher density blocks of between 1100 and 1600/ha using mixed locally native species with alder, aspen and willow in the wetter areas with the remaining few dotted throughout the rest of the planting. The remaining species were planted anywhere on freely draining brown earth soils. Tree spacing was variable, but within the range of 1100-1600/ha (2.50-3.0m). We avoided planting under the existing tree canopy and within the drip line of larger crowned trees. Native shrubs were planted throughout but mostly concentrated towards the edges of planting areas to provide the best chance of consistent flowering and fruit production.

It starts here!

The long-term vision for the new planting is to create areas of mixed and native woodland that complement existing natural environmental, landscape and historical features, and take into account a changing climate for future generations to enjoy.

The new woodland will contain a diverse range of native and non-native species planted in contrasting areas and patterns to create a mosaic of habitats and wooded features that will provide both native woodland habitat that will encourage wildlife and a landscape that contains a variety of trees from different continents mirroring the Victorian heritage of the site.

The native woods will be managed to become fully established within 10 years and achieve a closed canopy within 15 years. Hardy native pioneer species including birch, rowan, aspen and alder and will form the main tree canopy along with oak, small leaved lime and wild cherry planted within this mixture for diversity and to provide a long lived woodland. A wide range of native shrubs typical of mixed lowland broadleaved woodland will be planted up to 40% of the mixture as source of food for wildlife and for general diversity. The woodland may be managed in subsequent years to ensure the feature is preserved and allowed to mature providing a local amenity as well as natural habitat.

We were lucky to be able to plant the trees before the snow came, but our photos have a very winter feel!

We returned in April when the weather was better to lay some biodegradable mulch mats to supress the grass around the trees. We were pleased to see that our saplings were beginning to sprout.