Coppicing Suz

More Than Just The Bluebells

At this time of year woodland lovers marvel at the beauty of bluebells woods. Suddenly the usual green hue is carpetted in a luminous blue and sweet aroma. People tread carefully, if at all, so as to not trample all over these very welcomed inhabitants.

But its not just the bluebells that inhabit our woodlands at this time of year. When given some light through woodland management, such as coppicing, many other species of flower adorn the woodland floor. As I took a stroll through last years coup I was astonished to see the variety of woodland flowers and it really hit home how important woodland management is for the biodiversty of this ecosystem.

I have no idea what most of these flowers are so please enlightenment if you see any you recognise!

My First Coup

Well, the bluebells are out in force, the leaves are bursting into life and I am exhausted. So it must be spring! With my first coup nearly finished and ready to enjoy all the lovely sunlight it can now receive I am ready to settle down into making and selling mode.

I’ve been really lucky to have three woods to work in this winter and each have offered a different experience. Iain Loasby showed me how the professionals do it – well finish it, because I actually missed the cutting part – and then I got the chance to work in a fairly productive woodland in Worcester filling real life orders for real life clients. Finally I was able to put my heart and soul into a little coup in South Oxfordshire where I have been given to chance to practice everything I’ve learnt.

It was a very small and very over-stood so was more of a restoration project rather than a fully functioning coppice. Even so, there has been a chance to sell a few products and have already sold some bean poles in the farm shop. I also have plenty of pea-sticks if anyone is interested!

The hazel is quite sparse in this coup so I’ve layered some of the trees. This will hopefully increase the density for the next cut. I’ve also left small piles of wood to rot down and turn into habitats for the local small mammal population. The chickens also seem to like to use the brash piles as secret laying spots.

All the material has been put into a hedge around the coup so that over the next year, once the material starts to dry out, we can use it for firewood and kindle, as well as making pretty fences and other various crafty things.

I’m shattered but its been great fun and now I get to think about what I will make!

An Introduction to Woodland Management

I had a chance this weekend to really get my teeth into woodland management. After spending a lot of time in the woods over the winter and taking part in coppicing, felling trees and watching tree surgeons top and lop, I was excited to be able to correlate some of my practical experience with the management side of things.

The workshop was led by Jim Waterson, who has managing woodlands for many years and now teaches other newbies like me.

Of course, my main interest is the coppice aspect of woodland management, but it was also interesting to learn about what is called High Forest – the trees that you don’t coppice.

Making a woodland management plan involves quite a few considerations. These are short-term and long-term considerations, often thinking beyond your own lifetime. A plan also needs to be clear and easy to understand so that who ever inherits the plan can understand what you were on about and what your vision for the woodland was.

A big consideration at this time is climate change/chaos. We are in a period of unpredictable weather that could adversely effect our native woodland species. With the prediction of rising temperatures and water levels we need to be thinking about what tree species are going to thrive best in this environment. Some species of french oak might fair better in hotter climes and species such as lime and sycamore might be more hardy in hotter weather. (Ideally, we’d be holding the industries responsible for climate chaos accountable and not needing to apply any damage control – but there you go.)

Pests and diseases are also on the up. This is due mostly to imports but is compounded by climate chaos which stresses the trees, leaving them more susceptible to attacks.

Management of a woodland comes with a fair amount of responsibility, especially if one has public paths. However, even if you don’t have the public wandering through your woods you are still liable for taking measures to ensure that the woodland is well-managed and that any dangerous branch or tree is dealt with. Public liability insurance is a good idea.

When it comes to the legal side of things most small woodland owners won’t need a felling licence. One is allowed to fell up to 5 cubic metres per quarter and if you’ve just bought a 6 acre woodland.co.uk property you could probably cut your entire woodland down in a year with that (please don’t). Some types of felling are also exempt and coppicing trees under 150mm comes under this, which is handy. But make sure you check with your local tree officer before undertaking any work. Any trees cut down that are in a designated area and require a license or have a Tree Preservation Order could leave you in court.

If you are interested in taking one of these courses then get in touch with the Small Woods Association or do a quick search online and look out for Jim Waterson.

Making a Box with Mr Cox

As soon as I saw Sebastian Cox’s website I knew I had to meet him. Here was a person who was doing exactly what I’d like to see happen with coppiced material – turning them into modern, high-end furniture.

Traditional, rustic furniture certainly has its place, and its audience, but there is also a wider potential audience that enjoy a more contemporary look and who are keen to support british makers and British woodlands.

20190310_111529 — Sebastian’s collection of British sawn timber

Sebastian began his journey in 2010, noticing the disconnect between the customer and the supplier of the material. A visit to a timber yard brought home the odd experience of passing acres and acres of woodland only to find all the timber in the yard was imported. Our woodlands are severely under-managed in this country – up to 50% – yet we continue to import wood.

How we change this practice is a question that both myself and Sebastian share. Our relationship with food, and where that comes from, has changed dramatically over the last decade or so. How do we do the same for wood?

Sebastian is answering this question through design, and educates his customer base through the products he offers. Rather than using whatever the customer requests instead he offers and informs the customer of what wood is available this year and designs something beautiful out of that. It means that the customer still gets what they want but they use up surplus timber supplies such as beech and ash.

As for the box. I had a good go with some American Walnut that was grown in this country. I loved the beautiful purple hues in the timber along with a dark brown waney edge. Dove tails are a lovely joint to work with – as long as you get them the right way around. Thank goodness for mallets and ample supplies of wax to fill in the gaps!

It was great to see the master at work and get lots of useful tips. I definitely recommend it as a good day out.

(A full interview with Sebastian Cox will be published in the Small Woods Magazine shortly!)

Growing The Woodland Branch of the LWA

This weekend I was invited to attend the Landworkers Alliance woodland branch manifesto meeting. There are many people who work in woodlands and this offshoot hopes to reflect and promote the needs of those workers.

The LWA Woodland Branch’s manifesto is being developed to be presented to governing bodies and they wanted to know what issues us woodland folk have.

Some of the issued raised included earning a living wage, suitable housing, lack of contracts and stability, lack of education and awareness of management practices and awareness british woodland products.

One of the key issues for me is the lack of awareness of woodland workers, the products that they create and the importance of supporting these businesses. For example, a lot of our firewood and charcoal is imported. This is diabolical when we have so much unmanaged woodland in our own country, and a fair few people willing to manage them, if only they could afford it.

Members of the LWA woodland branch meaning business

Most woodland workers could afford this if they were allowed to live in low impact dwelling in the woods they managed. Sometimes this is possible but usually the set up is precarious and threatened with the specter of the planning department. The lack of contracts and agreements can also leave people in limbo when it comes to their rights to live on and manage the woodland. People are often given short notice to move on, which can be a blow after you’ve spent so much time, energy and resources into bringing a woodland back to life.

Most woodlands workers could also afford this if they were supported by the public and the government. Currently there are no subsidies available for small woodland workers and so unless one is happy to live in a yurt, which to be fair a lot of us are, you’re going to struggle to make an income. Yet woodland work is just as important as the food industry, and even has the added bonus of being of benefit to the environment. Woodlands have been managed for thousands of years by humans, and for millions of years by the movement and browsing of large roaming mammals. This is a vital practice for the continuation of many woodland species yet 50% of our woodlands are still unmanaged.

In the past workers could survive on the low income/high lifestyle benefits of woodland work. But with the increasing, and unrealistic, rental and house prices, the demand for cheap imports and the lack of public education on woodland management it becomes a difficult enviroment to flourish in. The LWA Woodland Branch plan on changing that.

A Nice Day Out

One of my passions in life is getting people back into the woods. It is so important, not only to encourage people to spend time out side, and away from cities, but also to get people working outside.

As a consumer culture we often experience the woods as just another nice day out. But this kind of relationship can create a sense of seperation from our enviroment and bring on feelings of detachment. We become outsiders peering into an alien landscape meant for other living things that we call ‘nature’. What we seem to have forgotten however, is that we are part of that natural environment! Before the onset of agriculture, and more recently indistrial civilisation, the woodland was our home for thousands, if not millions of years. But fear not. This sense of oneness returns when one engages directly with the woodland environment through hard graft. The primal instinct and ancient connection reemerges.

With this all in mind it was an absolute delight to put on my first community coppicing event. For one unusually sunny February day 14 people had a chance to get their hands dirty and bring light and warmth back to the woodland floor, as has been done so previously for centuries.

Even better was the attendence of a local scout troop! In the era of ipads and social media it was encouraging to see the focus and enthusiam of these children as they engaged directly with the work. They loved it so much they were keen to know when they could come back again! And, with the help of the other adults, all children left with complete sets of fingers, which I was very pleased about indeed.

Coppicing is a perfect way to get people back into the woodlands and learning how important it is to manage this type ecosystem. A coppice expects to be cut, and the more we leave them to overgrow the more, ironically, we damage the environment. A coppice also lends itself well to volunteer work because of the simplicity of the work and the tools that are used. Anyone who can use a pruning saw and some loppers can get involved. And the more we get people involved the more we can send out the message that we have a great solution to managing our woodlands in a sustainable way and providing our communities with amazing, high quality wood based products.

New homes for Baby Trees

Now that the coppicing has finished, the layering is complete and the standards have been felled it is time to introduce the baby hazel whips to their new homes.

Iain plants whips, alongside layering branches from existing stools, to increase stock density. At the moment, in this particular coup, the density is about 3m on average between each tree. Iain would like to get this down to 1m. Having trees growing this close together will push the hazel to grow faster and straighter as each stem reaches for the light. It will also manage the light that reaches the woodland floor, as after 3 or 4 years, after the hazel has grown tall enough to block out the light again, the woodland floor will start to become clear of brambles and this preps the ground for the upcoming cut. Once the hazel is coppiced the bramble free floor will give the flowers the warmth and light they need to germinate, and it will also be easier for the coppice workers during the coppicing.

Some people disagree that planting is a good idea. This is mostly due to the unknown origin of the whip and the possibility that it won’t be acclimatised for the area. Although the whips come from the UK they may come from very different climates. Some of the trees in this years coup for example didn’t loose their leaves until the middle of December. This suggests that the whips came from a more northern climate than their southern cousins and were still waiting for a colder cue to loose their leaves. This was slightly problematic when making pea sticks and faggots as these products are often requested without leaves and so required some vigorous waggling to remove them.

Best practice is to use the stock already present in the coup to ensure that the trees will be acclimatised to the microclimate and are certain to flourish that soil. It also reduces the chance of new diseases being introduced to the area. However, when you are restoring coppice and need to increase the stock density filling the spaces with layering would require using more of the stems that could be potential products and they may not even root.

So whips provide a quick way to increase density and so far, apart from last year perhaps because of the hot weather, Iain has had a good amount of success with the them.

It is also a lovely task to do and if these babies are looked after well they will still be growing in that very patch of land in hundreds of years time.

For The Birds

Today we’ve been taking out some of the ‘medium’ standards in the coup. I put quotation marks around medium because they look bloody huge to me!

Bringing these ‘medium’ trees down will allow more light onto the woodland floor, a floor that is already showing signs of Bluebells.

It can seem like a harsh practice to the casual onlooker. Surely trees are sacred and need to be protected? It’s true, they are and they do. Which is why its great when weaker trees with signs a disease and rot are chosen. The elderly birch that fell today hardly had any stump left on the ground, only being held up my it’s buttresses, and this is obviously dangerous. However, it can just sometimes be the tree that will let in the most light into the coup.

As well as the flowers, the other clear benefit (no pun intended) of a Coppice woodland, compared to an unmanaged dark and murky woods, is the proliferation of small birds.

Furzefield is covered in tiny birds. Everytime we fell a tree or disturb some leaf litter were followed by a handful of robins checking out to see what the hell we’ve been doing to their territory and is there anything new to eat. Gangs of bluetits mosey on by and various other tiny hoppers, which I can’t identify, also fill the branches. The whole woodland is alive with birdsong that, ok you can’t really hear while the chainsaw is going, but as soon as we swap the saw for the billhook it’s clear that this is a very popular place indeed.

Fact Corner:

For commercial aka simple Coppice the ideal is to have no standards at all in a coup. This will produce the finest Coppice material. But usually, especially in this country, Coppice with standards is the norm. In this case the ideal is 10-20% canopy cover and goes up to 20-30% when you want to leave enough for the wildlife. Having a variety of ages and sizes of stands is also good to consider so that you have a constant flow of younger trees replacing the older ones. Standing wood, when the tree dies and you leave it up, makes great homes for all sorts of things and doesn’t stop the light from reaching the Coppice.

Faggots!

Happy New year everybody! I hope you are all well rested and ready for the coppicing season.

Over the last month or so I have been helping Iain Loasby with the Coppice he manages in Potters Bar. All the hazel came down before Christmas and now we are gathering together the different products to sell.

This year Iain has a order for faggots. Watford district council have ordered floating berms to place alongside the bank to reduce bank erosion and faggots are ideal for this.

Faggots can be used for a few different things. Traditionally they were used as kindling for baker ovens to keep the bread oven at a high temperature. They can be used as material for dead hedging and most importantly, making forts.

But one of the best things about faggots is that they use up the parts of the tree that would otherwise be left as brash. Each 20kg faggots can be sold for £8 Each, which is not bad for a bunch of twigs.

To prepare a faggot Iain has made a bench that allows him to bundle and trim the faggots. He based his on an Alan Water’s design and it works a treat.

So there you go. Faggots are great and don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise.

An Apprentice Elf

Over the last two weeks I have been chief elf for one of my mentors Dave Jackson AKA The Stick Smith. Dave is a master at coming up with creative ways to use coppiced materials such as hazel and oak and has a great range of modern products. My favourite products to work on were the bird feeders. One was designed to hold an apple and the other used recycled wine bottles to hold some birdseed. I’m keen to learn traditional skills but I’m glad to have some experience in making high end products that create coppiced products with a modern twist.

Dave also made reindeer, wreaths, Christmas decorations, whistles and tea light holders.

I asked Dave about selling at markets and if he had any tips on pricing. Dave explained that he would adjust the prices depending on how well a product was selling. For example the bird feeders were struggling to sell at £20 so Dave brought them down to £15. Once they started flying off the shelf… he creeped the price up to £18. This didn’t effect the sales but he wasn’t sure they would break the £20 mark so he kept them at this price and managed to almost sell them all. Experimenting like this seems really useful on a weekend market where you have three days to try and understand your customer and work out what they are willing to pay.