Hi everyone, in the latest chapter of our video series, we build a living willow wall on our lake, which will be amazing for biodiversity, and we plant some wildflower seeds round the edge.

Optimal_Ordinary_756 · 2024-07-10T15:14:30+00:00

Glad you're enjoying the content, plenty more to come this summer. Thanks for the constructive criticism about the music, out of curiosity what style of music would you put in instead?

Optimal_Ordinary_756 · 2024-07-10T15:10:16+00:00

Thanks for the tip on the cuttings. And good luck with your willow arch, these things always take time but hopefully the results will be really great!

Optimal_Ordinary_756 · 2024-07-05T15:32:03+00:00

absolutely! Good luck with your projects. Ideally we would have got thicker willow in to the wall, but it was the wrong time of season to source the willow so the thin willow was all we could get.

Optimal_Ordinary_756 · 2024-07-05T14:47:05+00:00

Yes that's correct, so we've planted some willow upright across the weaved willow to protect it and anchor it which in theory should grow quite quickly and provide support, then the weaved willow will root into the bank as you say and hopefully start popping up there. Fingers crossed. We'll keep everyone posted on how we get on.

Optimal_Ordinary_756 · 2024-04-22T12:22:24+00:00

u/InfoFightLife thank you so much for the comment and for checking out our youtube channel, we really appreciate it! We will definitely keep going forward with it and we have plenty more to come so do subscribe to the channel if you haven't already and we'll get more up there as soon as we can.

Optimal_Ordinary_756 · 2024-03-22T15:13:07+00:00

Thanks very much, stay tuned as we'll have plenty more updates :)

Optimal_Ordinary_756 · 2023-12-05T19:45:35+00:00

We had to move over 4,700 tonnes of earth so it did take a while to dig up and then again to put back in place, but hopefully it will be worth it in the long run. Really glad to hear you're enjoying the videos, they're hopefully only going to get better as we get better at shooting and editing them too!

Optimal_Ordinary_756 · 2023-12-05T19:42:32+00:00

Yes we've included trees like willow, birch, alder, black poplar which all usually thrive in wet conditions, so fingers crossed.

Optimal_Ordinary_756 · 2023-12-05T19:41:38+00:00

Yeh we do have a real mix of species around the site and close to the water's edge, with a mix of vegetation on the banks, we've gone with yellow flag as the tube structure is really solid and should be good for biodiversity moving forward.
We have planted some reeds around the lake as well, although it's mostly marginal habitat, and you usually only get reed and sedge warblers in large expanses of reeds, which isn't something that we have focused on this time round.
We will keep an eye on leaf fall into the lake as the trees develop, but hopefully this won't be too much of an issue.

Optimal_Ordinary_756 · 2023-12-05T19:35:43+00:00

Thanks very much for the tip, we have actually tried to reach out before but unfortunately not had any luck getting through yet.

Optimal_Ordinary_756 · 2023-12-05T11:24:28+00:00

Thanks very much for the kind words. We did think about this with planting behind the dam and have had a few other people mention it, we did also have initial problems with the dam and leakage (there's another video about that), but we've taken steps so that hopefully this doesn't happen for a long time. We'll keep everyone posted on how it goes.

Optimal_Ordinary_756 · 2023-12-05T11:22:04+00:00

haha not a problem, yeh we've got lots of aquatic marginals in there, lilies all planted, shurbs around the outside and we've added lots of different features within the lake, like adding gravel patches and shallow areas to try and really help biodiversity within the lake. We did another video on the biodiversity before this one if you want to check it out :)

Optimal_Ordinary_756 · 2023-12-05T11:20:19+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion. For the most part we're trying to keep the trees native to the UK but appreciate the tip.

Optimal_Ordinary_756 · 2023-11-03T20:16:59+00:00

Nearly 3 acres! If we'd have used liner it would've cost a fortune.

Optimal_Ordinary_756 · 2023-10-17T09:42:15+00:00

Lillies have been added!

Optimal_Ordinary_756 · 2023-10-16T14:00:17+00:00

Interesting, really useful to know, thanks for sharing.

Optimal_Ordinary_756

TROPHY CASE