Cloning lime trees

The ‘mother’ tree produces young shoots, which are gently bent down in the winter. The bark is skinned close to a bud, powdered with rooting powder and pegged into a slot of sharp sand, with the rest of the shoot, which is still part of the mother- tree, staked upright.

See the red line on the first photo.


The hope is that through the next growing season the skinned bark will produce roots.
Early spring is the time to gently dig down around the ‘layered’ shoots to find out if it has worked.
When it does (often), you cut the shoot from the tree, and bingo, you have a clone of the mother tree, as per the second photo.


These majestic specimens are European, small leaf lime tree crosses, which look like this (third photo) when mature.


They are home to starlings in the winter and are alive with the buzz of bees in the summer which feed on the lime flowers. Even foxes have been seen living in the bushy, ‘epicormic’ growth which often grows in the middle of the tree.  No wonder we are trying to grow more of these glorious trees !

 

 

 

Welcome to our new website.

The Hatley Park Estate website hadn’t been updated in a few years and we thought it was high time we did, bringing the web space into the modern online world. With a fresh new look, some new features and eye catching photography of the farm landscapes and estate – just to name a few of the ongoing changes we plan to bring to the online space.

Please be patient with us as we curate a clear, bright and easy to use webpage for everyone to use and enjoy.

We have also entered the social media world and now have a Facebook page to boot!