Bog Myrtle & Peat

I set off on a hazel coppicing project in November with great enthusiasm, but other work soon intervened and I was forced to focus elsewhere for much of the winter. I checked in on the first signs of growth in April, then circumstances again tied me up and the trees have been undisturbed ever since. It was interesting to check in with them this morning and see how they’ve got on.

I’m not sure what I expected from the stumps, but the riot of growth and regeneration certainly caught me off guard. Some of the leaders are now four feet long, and the leafy greenery is like a bowl of salad inside the dead cages I built to keep the roe deer off. These cages were speculative affairs knitted together using brash and litter from the old hazel growth, but they have done a superb job in reducing deer damage. I left a few hazel stumps without guards to see what difference the deer were making and I was only able to find a single one today amidst the chaos of summer growth. The shoots had responded brilliantly, but they had all been eaten off again and were effectively back to square one.

Not only does this mean that the coppicing requires passive protection from deer, but it may also suggest that there are a few roe in this wood that might be better off in my freezer. With the roe rut now in full swing, it will be interesting to head out with the rifle and see what I can find.

Aside from the coppice work, the big clearing we made over the winter has responded beautifully to daylight and open skies. I hadn’t realised how empty this wood was until I began to manage it, and I now I realise that a stand of even-aged sycamore can be every bit as stifling and bare as a spruce plantation. I hope that more work will yield more variety and conservation value over the next few years.