Lichen Transplanting

As you might know, a few months ago, we moved house. As part of that gargantuan endeavour, we moved our fruit orchard as well. It was a totally mad time of year, at the beginning of summer, to move the young trees. All of them, cherries, apples, medlars, and plums, sulked the entire summer. Some dropped nearly all their leaves, but thankfully all survived. I'm hoping this winter gives them a good chance to establish themselves properly. I'm feeling optimistic.

I'm currently feeling so positive, I decided this week to take the orchard to it's next phase. My vision for this little orchard has always been to grow, what I like to call, an Orchard Garden. I think of an Orchard Garden as a lush green grove of fruit trees under planted with a plethora of soft fruits (currant bushes, gooseberries, honeyberries, etc.) and those bushes still further under planted with a ground cover of strawberries, herbs, and wildflowers. I want to establish an ecosystem focused on food production. 

This is where lichen comes in. Here in Plymouth, Devon, in the South West of England, the natural habitat is temperate rainforest, preciously rare. Due to high rainfall, temperate rainforest trees are festooned in lichens, mosses, ferns, whole ecosystems on every single tree. Magical, is the only description. As you can see, this sessile oak dominated forest in the Dizzard, Cornwall, is literally caked in lichens.

The same phenomenon occurs in old cidre orchards, for which Devon is so famous. Look at this veteran apple tree. Just beautiful. 

The problem with lichen though is that it spreads slowly, very very slowly. This is because the chance of a lichen spore or propagule finding a suitable location to land, survive, and thrive is so low.

l'm keen to help these little guys find my orchard garden as quickly as possible. The solution? Lichen transplanting. I got the idea from this inspiring article about transplanting lichens into young pine tree plantations in Norway. These researchers achieved impressive and, quite frankly, uplifting results. Not only did 115 out of 120 of their transplanted lichen thalli survive, their transplants in the young plantation grew just as well, and in some cases faster, than their transplants into old-growth forest. This excellent growth rate was positively correlated with higher light levels in the young plantation. 

This all sounds most promising for my little orchard, doesn't it? So as not to damage in any way the beautiful lichens in my local forest, I'm collecting pieces I find on the trail blown down from above by the wind.

At home, I'm simply tying them with natural twine to the branches of my trees nestled among the leaves. 

Both the windfallen lichen and I have nothing to lose and everything to gain, so let's wait and watch.