A dull but mainly fine Saturday. A good friend of mine had given me sixteen hazel plants that had been planted a few years ago as a screen in his partner’s garden. I guess they had grown too big so she had them dug up and was looking for a new home for them. “I know a man with some woods” he must have said and so they came my way – thanks to Jane. They are quite sturdy plants, though obviously have lost a lot of root but hazel are very resilient, so I am confident that with a bit of TLC they will put down new ones this year and pick up nicely in a year or two. Rather than cut them right down to normal coppice height, I’ve left some of the stems on, about 30 cm in order to preserve some of the latent energy in them which should help them recover. I have a fairly open and bare area with plenty of light where I have recently cut back the dense bramble. I’ve planted ten of them here which should eventually become a nice new hazel coppice area. Three more were planted near my camp area which left three to fill some gaps in the hazel coppice I am working on. Here you can see some of them in the newly planted area.
The three remaining ones needed “heeling in” somewhere until I have prepared a space for them. This is when I discovered the buried treasure. It’s an aluminium plate with words stamped on it. It looks like it came off some sort of truck, probably pre 1950s. I’ve tried Googling the company name but failed to find anything about them. An interesting find for my woodland museum though.
Whilst planting, I noticed how the groundcover plants – mainly wood anemone and bluebells, are lurking just below the surface under the dead leaf litter, ready to burst into life again in a couple of months or so. At first glance, the woods look dead at this time of year but closer inspection shows that far from it being in suspended animation, there are stirrings of new life all over. The hazel trees have new catkins already. It’s with that thought that makes me realise I need to keep busy with the coppicing project. I cut back another very old and large hazel that was partly rotten. It will be interesting to see if it either kills or revitalises it. I had identified three small to medium sycamore that were in this area that could be felled to open it up to more light. The hazel really needs plenty in order to grown vigorously. The result of felling them leaves this area looking quite denuded but I have the longer term vision in my head, of a lovely vibrant area of fresh green hazel bushes. A haven for wildlife and a small coupe back “in cycle” in a few year time.
