Actually i am following advice more or less. They say work from an existing group of trees and plant out from there. Was also told to plant seedlings 1.5 metres apart, which i thought was too close, but they said it's to encourage competition. They have what they call 'pioneers' - fast growing trees that shoot up to provide shade and reduce weeds, then you plant the slower but longer living stuff amongst them. The biggest challenge is to keep the grass down in the first year or so around the trees. There are grants you can get to regenerate but it's the wrong time of year to apply - it's during spring - i'll be on my marks for that when it comes around again. If you're successful, they will supply labour to help manage it. Should be well placed for a grant as they particularly want to regenerate creek banks and they look favourably on anyone who's made a start by themselves. I estimate it will need several thousand trees. You'd be surprised how puny 200 trees can look when it's stretched along a kilometre of river bank.

Bear in mind it's 30 acres, so that's about 15 times the size of my old place - so a lot of land to manage.

Have got some cows at the moment rotating between two paddocks and paying my neighbour to slash the one with the seedlings in it. I really want to plough one paddock and try a crop but still need more research - as my neighbour pointed out 'you need something that there's a market for'