Sea Buckthorn Update: Signs of Life

“Fresh new growth gives us hope that our first sea buckthorn planting is beginning to recover.”

We have a little bit of good news from our first sea buckthorn planting at Rocky Road Ranch—at least 2 of our 9 plants are showing fresh new growth!

Our first nine sea buckthorn plants have had a much tougher start than we expected. Shortly after planting, they experienced significant transplant shock and lost their leaves. We also discovered that some of the local rabbits apparently thought our new sea buckthorn grove was being planted for them. 🐇

For a while, we weren't sure whether any of the plants had survived.

Our new rabbit defenses are officially in place.

We have since added mulch around each plant, placed them on drip irrigation, provided some root support, and surrounded every plant with chicken wire to protect them from further browsing.

Now, two of the plants are pushing out healthy green leaves again.

We aren't counting the other seven out yet. Sea buckthorn is known for being remarkably hardy once established, and we're going to continue caring for all nine and watching closely for additional signs of growth.

These may only be a few little green leaves today, but they're exciting to us.

Our hope is that these first plants will eventually grow into a thriving sea buckthorn grove at Rocky Road Ranch—providing berries, leaves, habitat, and perhaps even becoming the foundation for some of the handcrafted products we hope to make here in the future.

Every grove has to start somewhere.

For ours, it may have started with two determined little plants that refused to quit.