This was the sight that greeted me when I arrived yesterday. The wood anemonies are in full flower looking like it had snowed overnight. The sun was out, the temperature rising and the wood is flourishing. I had planned to do lots of jobs but just had to take the time to have a slow wander around, take lots of photos and some video. This has to be one of the most beautiful times of the year in the woods and has to be savoured. In a few weeks all these anemonies will have disappeared, including the leaves. A few bluebells are starting to flower too and I found a small area where wood violas were showing. My newly planted wild cherry are bursting bud and also showing some beautiful flowers. This is what I’ve been looking forward to all winter,

So after a leisurely walk around I got stuck into some productive work. I wanted to clear more of the huge brash pile I ended up with after coppicing and start fencing the area off from deer browsing. I don’t want to burn the brash and have started to build a dead hedge from it. So before I could move it, I needed to hammer some more posts into the ground to support it. Having done that it was a labourious and tiring job, dragging the dead brash branches half the length of the wood and weaving it into the hedge. I told myself not to panic over getting the deer netting up as there are no new shoots showing yet and this job needed doing. The result is looking quite pleasing, adding some interest to the newly cleared and rather bare looking area. This is where I hope to do some overnight camping. Although it looks bare now, the bramble is already starting to spring up again and will look completely different by summer. Here’s the hedge so far. It will settle and shrink and need topping up occasionally. I eventually plan to make another two sides of hedge to create a sheltered and more private camping area.

Other jobs included cutting some dead logs and collecting honeysuckle bark. Why? Well I attended a one day bushcraft course at the weekend and we covered fire-lighting using fire-steels and bow drills. One of the best tinders for your initial flame is honeysuckle bark. It sheds it’s bark when it gets old and you strip small pieces off and roll them into a ball between your palms. I found loads of it in my woods. I know some bushcrafters will be envious. It’s a precious material when trying to create fire with natural “found” materials. I succeeded in making a glowing ember with a bow drill on the course. Really hard work but immensely satisfying to know I can do it. So now I want to make my own bow drill, hence the need for some dead and seasoned logs.

Another job which I wanted to do was ring bark a very large and badly damaged sycamore tree. It has suffered two huge injuries in the past. The top half has been blown so badly by the wind that it completely snapped off. Further down there is a huge scar where a massive limb had also been broken off. The tree was sending up new shoots but it needs to come down for two good reasons. It will never make a good specimen for future timber, only good enough for firewood and secondly, I need to thin some of the sycamore anyway to let more light in. Rather than cut it down for firewood, I decided the least invasive action was to ring bark it so that the top part will die off. The resulting dead tree will slowly decay creating a home for all sorts of other life – fungi, insects and birds that eat them etc. It’s very important to have all types of dead wood around for the ecology of the other species, so this way it benefits the wood as a whole. So it was with a slightly heavy heart I made a mental apology to the tree and hacked a ring of bark from the base. The tree may well sprout again from below the ring so it may not be entirely dead.

So another great day in my woods (one of the best). I’ll leave you with some more wood anemonies and if there is an old woodland near you, get off your backside and have a walk through it over the next few weeks. This is the best time of the year to be there.