It’s been incredibly hot the last few days but yesterday had cooled enough to make a visit and do some work. Robin from the Woodland Trust was going to be there doing an assessment of timber volumes for his project to help us remove some big trees, using a contractor. This plan is to help open up the canopy and aid restoration and some possible re-planting. I had a list of mainly small, non-essential jobs that would be good to complete. I have been aware of a few small limestone rocks sticking out of the earth in one area and thought that they might be useful for building a better, more natural, camp fire surround. So I took a heavy iron bar to prise them out. It soon became evident that there was a sizeable cluster of them so I just kept going until I had amassed  a decent pile. Mostly they had sharp edges but some pieces had very rounded ones (presumably from lomg term erosion). So this suggests that they had been larger,partly exposed rocks, which had been dug out and broken up at some time in the past. The area in and around the woods has lots of signs of old quarries but not in my patch. So had these been used for building something in the past? There is another area lower down in my woods where there are numerous large rocks in a vague circular pattern and these have been investigated by the local archeological society about 20 years ago. Apparently they were thrown out by the owner then and no definite conclusions were made as to whether they were the remains of some sort of ancient building. I won’t be disturbing those.

Second job, to try to split some more sycamore logs for stool seats. They were cut in the winter and left as short logs about a foot in diameter. They were already drying out and cracks starting to appear, so I didn’t rate my chances of getting useable pieces out of them. I had a go at a few and got some reasonable pieces to take home. I took the opportunity to sort through the logs, selecting some big knotty pieces to use as chopping blocks and woodland “furniture” for my camp sites. They are handy as stools and occasional tables when camping.

I continued with netting off newly coppiced hazel to protect the new growth from deer browsing. There was evidence that some were starting to be nibbled. This picture is a hazel stool that was cut the previous year and heavily browsed last summer. I netted it off in spring and it’s showing good signs of lush new growth.

It was late afternoon when Robin arrived to look at the trees I’d selected to be felled. So far the day had been rewarding and enjoyable but we were about to discover some bad news. He noticed some wilted leaves on some young ash saplings and we took a closer look. He said it was classic Chalara (Ash dieback) disease symptoms. He gave some sympathetic pats on the back which told me he was pretty sure the dreaded disease had arrived – probably late last year. The advice is to do nothing other than observe it’s development. The disease kills young trees fairly quickly and weakens older trees, leaving them vulnerable to other diseases which may eventually kill them. I tried to remain positive, thinking that maybe some of my trees will be in the small percentage that have a natural resistance to it. The news is still just sinking in. At least I don’t have to worry about getting it anymore!

It’s been a wet and windy week so it was no surprise yesterday to find a few broken branches. This was the worst, where a large limb on one of the tall sycamore has snapped and lodged itself in a neighbouring tree. These plantation trees are very tall but quite narrow. It’s quite eerie when the wind gets up as they flap about in all directions and sometimes bang into each other making a loud wooden clap sound. I stay well away from them on those days.

It’s two week since my last visit but for some reason seems much longer. At this time of year, a lot changes in two weeks. The trees are now fully leaved which makes most areas quite dark. The ground cover has shot up and brambles are sending out massive long leaders. The recent rain has softened the earth though, making it fairly easy to pull them up by their roots. I had a a couple of hour-long sessions just doing that and it’s surprisingly satisfying, though hard work and at times painful – they fight back!

This is one of the areas close to my camp. The bramble and willow herb were swamping these beautiful ferns and the small hazel in the foreground. I’ve brushcut this area a few times which has definitely encouraged lots of new, different ground cover species and the ferns are flourishing with the extra light but the brambles don’t give up so easily. So pulling them by the roots is my main strategy now.

The small hazel is one of the plants given to me by a friend whose partner had dug them out of her garden. I was quite late planting them and they were bare rooted and had lost most of their small fibrous roots, so there was some doubt as to how well they might recover – if at all. They would need to make new roots pretty quickly in order to take in water to feed the new leaves which would soon be sprouting. I purposely left about 12 inches of old stem which would be holding water and energy to help them through the first recovery stage. It’s been a very dry spring which is not what they needed. I’ve watered them whenever I could but it was never enough. Well so far so good, I’m pleased to say they seem to be doing very well. Simon R. – please report back to Jane and show her this photo.

The other main job I planned, was to continue splitting down some of the large sycamore logs, hoping to be able to use them as stakes for the deer netting. Well sycamore isn’t a particularly good timber for that but as I have lots and lots of it, I wanted to see if it was feasible. The verdict is – debatable. Some of it came out as useable but much of it didn’t. It’s hard work and time consuming so is it worth the effort? Probably not but here’s a picture of the pieces I worked on. Much of it is too thick for stakes and to try splitting further will probably result in pieces that have “run off” i.e. not split evenly along the full length, ending up with shorter and unusable shapes. These pieces shown might be used for the other walls around the composting toilet so not a wasted exercise.

Finally, I mentioned how the ground cover has benefited where bramble has been controlled to a degree. I have tried to improve these areas with the odd bit of wild flower planting, to help nature. Two years ago I dug up a couple of foxglove plants that had self-seeded in my garden at home. I planted them around my camping area to add some colour and and foraging opportunities for bees and other insects. I’m pleased to see that they survived and have even spread a little bit. The bumble bees love the flowers and so do I.