This Almost Didn’t Happen | Planting Native Trees | Renovation & Homesteading Journey Ireland

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Welcome to Margan's Cottage Homestead.

[00:00:02]If you're new here, my name is Ashling and I'm renovating and restoring this 200-year-old Irish stone cottage. We're set on 4 acres of neglected and boggy land, which I'm going to turn into my homesteading dream with all the animals and vegetables and plants that you can think of.

[00:00:20]>> Everyone, welcome back to Mar's Cottage.

[00:00:22]Another day in Ireland.

[00:00:24]There is no blue to be seen.

[00:00:28]>> Standard. Do you want to come? Do you want to come? Are you ready? Are you ready?

[00:00:35]Yeah.

[00:00:38]Hi.

[00:00:43]Hello.

[00:00:46]Come on, mister or Mrs. Hello.

[00:00:56]Hi.

[00:00:58]Hi chickies.

[00:01:03]You're getting so big.

[00:02:33]Good morning everyone and welcome back to Margan's Cottage. It is uh March 14th. It's Saturday, the sun is shining, and it is like 9:00 a.m.

[00:02:47]So, this morning's video, obviously, we have started by cutting some grass, uh, which, uh, what I'm trying to do at the moment is just cut a pathway um, down along so we can reach the other side of the land. So, my land just is just that fence over there, and then there's a road on the opposite side. Um it's very wet at the moment because we've had like three months of non-stop rain. Um but we have a very important job that we're doing over the next couple days. So cutting the grass is kind of like a mustdo.

[00:03:23]If you remember back to this time last year, I availed of the free trees Ireland scheme where basically I got I think like 39 free bare root native Irish trees and we planted them all along up that way and you can't see it but up along that way there. Now most of those trees I think have survived. We'll find out in the next few weeks when the leaves start coming out of the buds. Um, but we have availed at this again. And what I need to do is get um a pathway strimmed over to the opposite side of the land and then trim all back where we're going to put um the trees along this side of the property. Now, before we go back outside and do any more grass cutting or planting of the trees, I thought I'd show you guys what has just arrived, and that is my new wild package. So, here you can see we've got their newest case, which is Little Ladybugs. Look how cute that is. Emma Bridgewater consistently pulls it out of the bag with her cute cases. We also have the Bumblebee case with the body wash. Look how cute that is.

[00:04:33]And the new chapstick design as well, which is just so cute and matches the ladybug case perfectly. All of the Wild products are paraban free. They don't use any harsh chemicals. They are vegan 100% and they are also cruelty-free to animals, which is why I always go back to choosing wild because it's good for my skin. It's good for the animals.

[00:04:53]We're not testing on them. But we still get 24-hour protection with their stick deodorant, which is just incredible. I stick with Wild because their cases are aluminum, they're reusable, and they're also just, come on, super super cute.

[00:05:06]Every time you use a Wild refill, you actually save 30 g of plastic from going into the refills, which is huge.

[00:05:12]Choosing a compostable deodorant and a refillable case is just such an easy switch to make. I'm so excited. Wild have given me a whopping 20% discount to give to you guys. You can follow the QR code on screen. You can use the little code at the bottom that's margins or you can follow the link in the description box below. Any of those ways will give you 20% off their entire store, which is just awesome. So, make sure you check out Wild and do use that uh discount code so you get a good deal on it, too.

[00:06:09]Heat.

[00:06:28]Heat.

[00:07:00]So we started over there.

[00:07:03]We got along here and we got down just over to there.

[00:07:09]Done. And we're going to stop cuz I'm so tired and I'm hungry. So tomorrow I think we will have to finish to the end cuz we're trying to get down to that yellow tree.

[00:07:26]And this is how far away we are.

[00:07:29]I will just say before we go on down there, if you wouldn't mind liking, hyping, and commenting on the video, if you're not already subscribed, if you could, it's free. That would be really nice. Uh it really goes a long way to helping let YouTube know that these videos are worth watching if you enjoy them. Uh if you don't, then I mean, if you want to like, hype, and subscribe anyway, that's fine, too. But anyway, let's get going. Come on.

[00:08:12]So, to give you a bit of context, there's the house. We just walked down along the side and then down across over here. This is where we've been streaming back the last few days. And uh turning this way, this is what we got done yesterday. So, lots still to be done.

[00:08:36]We need to get down to that yellow plant.

[00:08:47]So, this is what was done yesterday.

[00:08:55]Still lots to trim back where each individual tree will go, but at least we can walk it.

[00:09:04]And we got over to here, which was extremely wet. So, I wonder if this is where a drain was.

[00:09:12]Big rock randomly.

[00:09:16]And now this is where we have to swim from. All the way over to there.

[00:09:25]So, you've seen enough of me cutting grass. I'm not going to uh film this part. Um I will just come back to you when we're down at that bush. I'm tired already. And I've just walked down.

[00:09:36]Look, the house is so far away. But if we get this treelined, I'll be so happy because then the entire east boundary of the property will have trees that will hopefully grow and act as a wind barrier. As you can probably hear, it's quite windy right now. So anyway, I'll see you in a little bit and I'll show you when we get down to the end.

[00:09:58]Hopefully we get down to the end. So there's the house. We started somewhere over here and we've cut back to here and I ran out of petrol. So, I'm gonna have to go fill it up. But, I thought I'd show you where we are.

[00:10:15]There is the yellow tree. Yay.

[00:10:23]So, not too much further.

[00:10:25]I wonder can we get over there?

[00:10:33]So this is the end of the property.

[00:10:37]There's the house, poly tunnel, hens, pond, and us.

[00:10:46]So it's quite overgrown down here.

[00:10:56]We made it. Oh my god, I'm so tired. Uh, all of here is like literally like a pond. It's so full of water.

[00:11:04]Let me show you.

[00:11:08]So, that's where we're going to stop cuz I'm sinking. But what I'm going to do is now go all the way back up there and get my measuring tape and we're going to measure out where we're going to put the trees. And I'm going to cut specific areas where the trees are going to go.

[00:11:27]But at least we have now a path. We are at the end of the property.

[00:11:34]Now it goes all the way over there. But we are Oh my god. This is like literally a bog. Um but yeah, we're at the end. This is it.

[00:11:47]We haven't been down here. So well done us. We got here. Uh eventually we will tame all of this. I'd love a little gate down here to get in the end of the property, but for now, I think I might put a willow like right here.

[00:12:05]Um, but yeah, for now, I'm going to go back, get my tape measure, and we're going to um cut out the grass everywhere. We're going to be placing an actual tree.

[00:13:42]Heat. Heat.

[00:14:20]Okay, everyone. It's now half 1. We've been working non-stop since 10:00 roughly. So we got one, two, three, four, five, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 21 22 and 23 23 spaces for trees.

[00:15:06]We have 30.

[00:15:09]About four of those 30 are Scots pine.

[00:15:12]So, we won't be planting those.

[00:15:15]Oh my god, I'm so tired. Sorry, I'm so tired. Haven't eaten yet today. So, we're going to go have some lunch. It's getting quite sunny, so I'm going to go check on the ducklings in the poly tunnel. All the doors and everything are open so that they can like get lots of fresh air. It was maintaining about 24° half an hour ago when I popped them in there. So, if it's over 25, we'll probably bring them in for a little bit.

[00:15:40]Just cuz I don't want it being too hot for them. Um, oh my god, I'm so tired.

[00:15:46]They will be moving out to their own run when they have adult feathers, but just for now, Poly Tunnel is a good place for them. Uh, but yeah, what did I say? 23 23 places for trees.

[00:16:01]Uh, we will go and have a look any of the spots that are really really boggy like over here. I'm going to put the gray willow into because the grey willow absolutely loves wet soil. And then we have oak, alder, I think birch, oak, alder, birch, willow, scots pine.

[00:16:19]The Scots pine we're going to plant in pots this year because apparently they do a lot better if you start them in pots and then transplant when they're bigger. I should say I planted or I strimmed spots 3 m apart and we did 23 spots.

[00:16:36]So, I would guess today I've roughly strimmed 69 meters of rushes. See, I'm exhausted.

[00:16:48]I'm so tired. But just trying to show you the reality of what we're getting done. It's hard work.

[00:16:58]March was going to be a very hard month.

[00:17:02]Once March is done, it should be able to everything should be like maintaining itself at that point and then we can move back into the house and do a few bits in there. So, that's the plan anyway. Okay, I'm going to go have some lunch, check the duckies in opposite order to what I just said, and then we'll come back out and plant these trees. I'll show you where the old trees stopped. Hang on. You might remember from last year, we planted all the trees up to there. And most of them have done really well, but as you can see, we need to get in and stream back around them just so that they're not getting overgrown.

[00:17:39]And what I'd love to do is I'll have to get the drone out at some point if I can stream a path all the way down to here. As you can see, there's like fields that are just long grass and I can get the lawn mower in. So, if I stream a good path back, I can push the lawn mower down and just get the lawn mower in and start hacking away at bits of the land. Do I think I'm going to get all the grass cut by hand? No. But if we could just slowly work our way down the land and as long as I can tell that there's no, you know, um if I can get it strimmed short enough that I can tell that there's no rocks or debris or trash or anything like that, then potentially a farmer will come in and actually do the whole lack. And once a farmer has done that, I will beg and steal a ride- on lawn mower from somewhere so we can just maintain the land going after that. But I'd say for the land to be fully cut back next year.

[00:18:35]It'll be next summer before next summer.

[00:18:38]Okay. Lunch. Duckies. Duckies. Lunch.

[00:18:43]Okay. It's now half 2. We are back down where we've been working today. I've got Mari with me this time. She's been stuck inside all day, so I thought, you know what? We're finished swimming, so she can help out with this bit. She's never been down here, so some new smells for her. But here are my trees. And what I'm going to do is just lay out each tree where I want it, and then we're going to get them planted. So, I'm going to get you set up here, and we're going to get that done. So, take all these ones.

[00:20:02]Okay, I have placed all of our willow or what I have identified as willow.

[00:20:08]though. Um into the spots that are the wetest. And then we're just going to plant all the rest.

[00:21:36]Oh.

[00:21:39]Oh. Oh.

[00:22:32]Done. They're all planted.

[00:22:37]We have five trees left and we'll do those later, I think. Or maybe tomorrow. I don't know. I don't have a spot for them. I'm exhausted. I'm going to bring this one for a walk.

[00:22:49]I'm so tired.

[00:22:52]Bye. See you tomorrow or later. I don't know.

[00:23:27]So, these three trees are just here at the end of uh where the hens are going to be and they're looking really good. Nice and healthy. Buds are opening all over there.

[00:23:41]But so these three are doing good. And then we're going to check all the way down this side. And then we're going to cut across and check the new ones that we planted. And then we'll come back and we'll check the ones that we planted last year over there. But these are all the ones we planted last year. A lot of these trees did not survive on this side.

[00:24:02]Um, so you might be able to see this one's looking really good. Buds are coming out. It's still just a baby. Um, but hopefully this year it'll grow.

[00:24:15]Any of the Scots pine that we planted over here uh did not survive. So, here's one down here. And it's crispy and dead.

[00:24:24]Planted most of the Scots pine down along here because I didn't think the Scots pine was going to survive. Uh, this one is dead.

[00:24:35]Scots pine isn't really made for this um kind of soil. So, I'm not super surprised to be honest. Uh, this Scots pine is alive though, so that one's fine. It's funny. Some will survive and some won't.

[00:24:49]Now, let's have a look here.

[00:24:53]I don't know what kind of tree this is, but it's looking good. We're just I think is this an oak? I don't know what this is. I think it could be an oak. Not sure. Tree people let me know. Um, but I'm pretty sure this was one of the last ones to bud last year, so we won't worry about the fact that there's no leaves yet. Same with this one here. It is still alive cuz it's like bendy and flexy. It just hasn't leafed yet.

[00:25:16]We actually planted a lot of the oaks over here because this side of the land is drier. So, that's another. Now, this is a Scots pine. I'm pretty sure it's dead. Yes, it is.

[00:25:32]H. This is another oak. So, we are just waiting for it to come back to life.

[00:25:40]Another one here. Hopefully, these will all just take off this year. Uh, here is a Scots pine that actually had done quite well, but it has now died. So, there you go.

[00:25:52]Come on, darling girl.

[00:25:56]Um, this one is dead dead.

[00:26:01]So, that's unfortunate.

[00:26:04]And then here's another Scots pine here, which it looks a bit dead to me. It's still got a little bit of green, but it's quite uh flopped. So, I think it's dead. Anyway, I'm going to turn it off for a minute.

[00:26:17]We're going to go down. We're going to cut across, and then we're going to go look at the trees that we just planted.

[00:26:21]What I will say is um the previous clips in this video were actually filmed about 3 weeks ago. We planted all the trees I'd say 3 weeks ago at this point and um then we just kept getting hit by storms.

[00:26:40]Storm Dave and then Storm Eddie. We've had pretty much non-stop rain. Uh it's been really really really bad. So, and now we're out of petrol.

[00:26:52]Both. Well, I have a little bit in the car, but we've no petrol for the mower, the strimmer. Uh, and we're in a fuel crisis here in Ireland. There is no fuel at the pumps. So, we can't do anything really. But anyhoo, someone's gone behind the cloud.

[00:27:11]Yeah, I'll pick you back up when we get over to the new trees. All righty. Here are the trees we planted about three weeks ago. Uh, as you can tell, we have not put stakes in them yet. We haven't put tree guards on them yet. We've done nothing with them because the weather's been so bad. But, as you can see, we are getting little buds in, but we need to get some stakes in to hold them up straight. There's the first one. I think we did about 23.

[00:27:38]So, next one here. And again, we've got little buds coming up. So, I'd say successful so far. Uh, this one is still alive. I think this one is an oak. And it might take a little bit of time for it to open up like the last time. I was convinced the oaks were dead and then they came to life just very much later than everything else. And I think this one's the same. They're not, you know, brittle.

[00:28:12]I think we just got to wait. This one have Oh, this one has like leaves that are just getting ready to open. So, that's nice to see. Hopefully, that takes through there, darling. Okay. Nothing going on with this one at the moment.

[00:28:34]That's okay. Don't know what kind it is now, honey. It's very wet over here. Uh, do you want me to lift you across? Hang on. Uh, here is the willow we planted, but it is falling over. So, I just need to Oh my god, this is really, really wet. Um, I don't know if it's going to stay up. We will get this staked ASAP. Um, but it seems to be okay.

[00:29:06]like it's burst into flour. And I think Willow really likes wet soil. So hopefully it likes really really wet soil.

[00:29:15]This is like a tiny little baby tree. Um and I think it's just coming into leaf.

[00:29:20]So hopefully this one takes as well.

[00:29:24]Another oak.

[00:29:26]Uh this one is just about to come into leaf it looks like.

[00:29:33]Oh my. This one has taken so well. This is one of the new ones that we planted. My goodness, look at all the leaves. It's small, but it's healthy.

[00:29:47]This one is just getting ready to go into leaf as well. So, I mean, so far the trees have taken quite well.

[00:29:58]This one here, another oak. So, we might not see anything for this one for a couple weeks. I'm saying these are oak like real confident, but I actually have no idea. Uh, this one looks like it's about to take off as well. This little guy down here is already opened. Oh, this one is planted in like literally a bog now. It is opening, but it is in like literally a bog. Uh, we got a lot of whatever this one is. Is this an oak as well? It's hard to tell. I have no idea. But we got a lot of it.

[00:30:33]Uh, this one has all opened. Is this a rowan? Does anyone know if this is a rowan? It doesn't really look like anything we had last year. And I know we had a rowan this year. So, maybe it's a rowan. I'm not sure. Who knows?

[00:30:47]Um, this one here has burst into life. So, whatever this one is, this one's doing really good, too.

[00:30:56]This one has burst into life.

[00:30:59]This is a willow, I'm pretty sure. And you can see that it is actually split down the middle. Um, however, it is still alive.

[00:31:11]Um, so maybe we'll get lucky. Literally, we're in like a bog. Um, here is another tree that has just kind of decided to come into life. So, that's the update on the trees that we planted, I'd say, 3 weeks ago at this point. Uh today is the 13th of April and I think we planted them March. So it's been at least two weeks.

[00:31:38]I'd say it's been three and they're all doing quite well. Um all righty you guys, we're now down the opposite side of the property. So houses over there. I showed you over there the ones we planted last year. And then I showed you on this side down the very end the ones that we planted about 3 weeks ago. So, now I'm going to show you on this side the ones that were planted this time last year. Hey, here is the first one. It's looking really good.

[00:32:15]Uh, this is another oak. And oh, it's kind of brittle.

[00:32:21]This one may be dead.

[00:32:23]It feels a bit brittle, but we'll see.

[00:32:25]We'll give it some time. We have a Scots pine that actually it looks okay. So, that one might, you know, survive. Have another oak. This one feels a lot better than the other one. So, hopefully that one's okay. Uh this one, it's alive, but there's no sign of any buds opening.

[00:32:50]So, hopefully this will still open. Uh this one here, the buds are just starting to open.

[00:32:59]So that's exciting. The lower down buds have all opened.

[00:33:04]The higher up ones haven't yet, but this tree looks really good. This one is just starting to leaf now. What are the trees over here? Oh, this one's doing absolutely.

[00:33:15]Look at this one. This one is just covered in leaves. Uh this one looks dead.

[00:33:23]It feels kind of dead. Yeah, this one is dead. Okay, so this one did not survive.

[00:33:28]Oh my god, look at this one. This one is taller than me. It goes all the way up to here.

[00:33:36]And as you can hopefully see, it is in full leaf. And look at how thick this stem is. This is like our best tree.

[00:33:44]This one has done the best out of all of them. So that's really exciting.

[00:33:48]And then coming over here, I think this one and this one are the same kind of tree, maybe. I don't know.

[00:33:57]But the leaves are all looking really good.

[00:34:01]So hopefully these all start growing.

[00:34:06]Uh this one is a hazel. So we'll have to give this one a little bit of time cuz this was quite slow last year to germinate as well. Then we got this one here. You can see the little buds are just starting to open. This is like a total swamp down there because of the like six months of rain.

[00:34:27]Uh here is a Scots pine that has actually done so well. Um this one had no tree guard on it and it actually I think looks the healthiest of all of them. So this one is an oak I think as well. So we need to give this one a little bit more time. This one here is an oak, too.

[00:34:47]Uh, so we will give that more time as well. This one is just starting to leaf.

[00:34:54]We got this one here that's looking fab.

[00:34:57]Loads of leaves.

[00:35:00]Hopefully, we can get some growth on all of these so they get nice big and strong. Uh, this one here last year I think is dead and I don't think it ever Oh, yeah.

[00:35:12]There you go.

[00:35:14]It's dead. Dead. Oh, it's dead. Dead.

[00:35:17]Oh, it's dead. Dead dead. Oh, it's dead.

[00:35:19]Dead.

[00:35:21]It's dead. This one never did anything.

[00:35:24]So, it's dead. And then at the time when I was planting them, I was thinking of planting them straight across this way and then I planted this one and then I ran out of trees and I was like, why would I do that? Because then I'm blocking my beautiful view down the property. So, there's just this random one here and uh it is alive and it is well. So, that is exciting to see. That is the update on the trees we planted about 3 weeks ago. And I will in like a future video show you me putting tree guards and stakes and everything in them to get them nice and kind of secure from hairs and animals and also um wind. But this video has to go up. So, no time. Uh we just haven't had time. And I need to get bamboo cuz I'm all out. I have plenty of tree guards, but I need bamboo. And then also it's the update on how our trees from this time last year that we planted are. So a year on I would say 85% are still alive which considering it was my very first time ever planting trees that's not too bad. And also um quite a few quite a few of the trees um aren't really um productive in the kind of soil that I have and very wet bogggy soil. So like I think it's the alder, the birch maybe are good in wet soil.

[00:36:46]Willow is fantastic in wet soil. Oak is just me. It prefers drained soil I think. Um Scots pine I don't think was suited for this kind of ground at all.

[00:36:57]Uh but when you do the free trees Ireland um you just get given a batch and it's a mixed batch of native trees so you don't get to pick what you get.

[00:37:06]So, we we planted all of them and you know what? We've had some good success.

[00:37:10]So, I'm very happy. Um I'm going to give all the trees a couple months to see uh which ones don't come into leaf at all and which have like died died.

[00:37:22]And once we kind of figure that out, I'll go ahead and I'll remove the dead ones. And then next year, we might um just go ahead and buy larger trees. Um, we'll see if they run Free Trees Island again. Uh, I have plenty of boundary on the opposite side that we can put plenty of trees down that way. So, we might do that. But for this side, since we already have it'll be year two for some of the trees, or I suppose technically year three, but two years since we planted them, um, just for any new trees, maybe buy a little bit bigger so they don't have to be quite so small in comparison. But anyway, that's the update on the trees. Uh, it was great to get more trees in the ground because I've explained it before, but all the wind it comes, this is the west. The wind comes this way and it just absolutely Let me turn around kind of slow. So, when the wind comes in, it just batters everything. And if we could have trees along the property to just take a little bit of that um initial battering, I think it would put things like our poly tunnel, our house, um the hen house, the duck house. I think it would just put everything in a slightly safer position. So anyway, happy to have the trees up and also it's great for biodiversity.

[00:38:52]So anyway, hope you enjoyed the video.

[00:38:54]Uh if you wouldn't mind liking, commenting, subscribing, hyping, the whole shebang. Um it helps push the video to YouTube and tells YouTube like, "Hey, more people might want to see this." Uh if you're not already, do make sure to subscribe because for some reason subscriber count seems to mean something. And uh I will see you guys in next week's video, which I'm trying to think what that's about.

[00:39:23]Oh, we're going to have an update on the solar um and other stuff, but I'd like to give you an update. It's been 6 months since the solar panels were installed. So, I'll give you a bit of an update on how that's gone. And there's some other stuff going on as well. So, I'll show you that then. Bye. I don't know why I'm waving like this. A little pointing wave. Bye.