First Full Winter

Our first full winter with the woodland has now come to a close. Dan and I spent the colder months doing a range of woodland work and making a further plan for the coming year.

Firstly we began coppicing. As the woodland is so tiny, this means we will only be cutting a few hazels each year, to bring the areas of hazel into rotational management.

The micro glades opened by coppicing the hazel will now be able to serve the wildlife on a cycle - the herb layer will regenerate due to the added light, this will attract more insects who feed on the blooms and in turn more birds and small mammals will be encouraged to the site to feast on the insects.

The wood produced from coppicing was sadly too overgrown to serve many of its traditional purposes; largely due to the fact the woodland had been unmanaged for 20 years prior to our arrival. Maybe in the future we can use poles for fencing or hurdle making, when we can cut it at the right age.

However we did manage to utilise all of it, predominantly for firewood, both to season for use at home and on the woodland camp fire. We also used a lot of the twiggy brash to protect the cut hazel stools but kept some back to make firelighters.

Dan and I also began the thinning operations after receiving our felling licence approval in early December 2024. Our tree choices for this may seen a little haphazard however we had a plan to halo thin around one particularly gnarly oak who has the potential to become an interesting veteran long after we are gone. We also wanted to link the two smaller glades in the northerly section of the woodland by opening the canopy to help the ground layer.

We managed to complete this with just hand tools, although processing the downed timber has proved more time consuming with just a saw that we had anticipated!

We shall simply keep loggin on
Rach and Dan 🌳