 So, three years ago we planted this jubilee plum and she's doing all right. We made some videos showing you how we plant the trees and how to mulch. And I just want to do a little follow-up video, I'll give you a chance to see how she's doing, but also to talk a little bit about the kind of maintenance we do in the autumn and the spring to make sure our trees have the best chance of success. The two main things to talk about really is to do with the staking. So, when we planted the tree we put in a stake. This tree is on a smaller rootstock, it's a semi-dwarfing rootstock, although it's still going to be three or four meters high and wide. But that means that it'll never produce strong enough roots to stand up on its own, probably, and so it's likely to always need a stake. And every year we're going to be checking that the stake is still strong. It's doing all right. And so that it's the tie that attaches the tree to the stake is not too tight. Every year the tree ideally is growing. And as a result of that the girth of the tree is going to get bigger. There's a little bit of flexibility because these ties are a little bit rubbery and they'll accommodate that growth for a year or so. But then every year, so in the autumn, we came down here and I went round and checked all the trees and I undid the buckles and I did them back up again. But as you can see, perhaps this is where it was last autumn and I moved the ties so the ties aren't always on the same place, always rubbing the same bark. So we moved the ties a little bit up or down and checked the stake itself. And the other thing we put up did was to put on the tree guards, this one here that protects the tree against browsing by rabbits and other rodents and so on. And the reason that I was putting it on is because in the spring I'd taken it off. So why do we take the guards off in the summer? Well, because the main threat is in the winter months when it's cold and there's not so much to eat around and your rabbits might come looking for where they can nibble the bark and get the sugars from underneath. And but in the summer months, these guards can cause problems because ants like to make nests in them I've discovered and that can ensure that it can keep the bark damp and it can cause problems with the tree. And so I always take the guards off in the summer months. So about this time of year, the guard comes off. Well, I'll do it now. And then in the winter months, so November end of November onwards, depending on where you are seasonally might be earlier for you, but to put the guards back on again to protect the tree over the winter. There we go. OK. So the other thing we want to talk about is the mulching bit. So this obviously isn't the mulch we put on three years ago, which was primarily seaweed. So we mulch this again in the autumn with a lot of its prunings, tree prunings, so there's quite a lot of leaf in it, but it's bark, chippings and so on. And you'll notice that there's a few more plants in here than there was before. Originally, we planted this allium, which was all about getting some mycorrhizal activity going. There's no guarantee the tree will plug into the same mycorrhizal, but it changes the structure of the soil and it starts to develop it in a way that the tree is going to prefer. And we've got a few other plants in here, most obvious being daffodils. Now, the reason daffodils are in here, primarily we plant daffodils these days because they look nice. But as it happens, daffodils, the bulbs of daffodils, rodents don't like them. And one of the problems we had with these trees is because when we dug up the hull, if you've seen the original video of planting the tree, there was lots of bits of block and so on, builders waste from the original combustion of the barns in the 1980s and they just shoved it all in here, shoved some soil on it and turfed it. And so we dug a hull and we found lots of blocks, but there's a lot of space between those blocks, which is fantastic for rodents. They've got lots of little places to live down there. So we fairly soon discovered vole holes around the tree, perhaps because they're an easy place to find them and spot them because they are around in the grass as well. And so we planted some daffodils. But the primary, the first thing we did was we stuck some mint in the holes because we learnt that voles don't like the smell of mint. And so we just cut some mint from around the garden and I shoved it, leaves down, stem up in the holes. A couple of holes and didn't think too much about it, but then they rooted and they grew. So now we've got mint plants here as well, which are just coming up, just down here as well. So we've got mint and daffodils, which are in this guild of plants around the tree and that's all about protecting the tree as best as possible from vole damage. And I think looking at it, we've got some bee activity going on right now, but it's doing a pretty good job. So make sure you look after your trees, get out there, check the ties, check the stakes are okay, and take the guards off or put them on, depending on which time of year it is. Make sure you've got a good mulch. We're not mulching now because the ground is colder and you don't want to put mulch on cold ground, whereas in the autumn the soil is warmer and you're mulching onto warmer soil, so that makes sense. So that's why in nature mulch is in the autumn and it's a good time for us to do it as well. If you do need to add more mulch, just wait for the soil to warm up a bit first, but other than that, yeah, do a little bit of maintenance and your trees will reward you.