Using coppiced hazel to make a woven hurdle fence

Since January I have been cutting a portion of woodland for coppice. This means cutting the trees down to just above ground level, ideally at a 30 degree slant outwards to shed water, so that they will resprout a large number of long, thin, straight "rods" over the coming years.

Coppicing used to be very common in the UK but the perceived value of coppiced, wooden products has been lost: bean poles and pea sticks have been replaced with bamboo and polypropylene netting; fences are now made from treated timber or galvanised steel rather than stakes; woven hurdles for building replaced with plasterboard. Aside from these products, coppicing also creates a mosaic of habitats within a woodland as the light level at the woodland floor changes each year. In England and Wales, a coppiced woodland is typically home to a much greater variety of species that a closed-canopy, "climax" woodland.

The woods that I manage contains mostly oak, ash, hazel, sallow and some thorns. Ash, hazel and any of the Salix species (the sallows and willows) will coppice readily, although hazel is the most prevalent. Oak will also coppice but needs to be cut whilst relatively young. I've been cutting the hazel and ash trees within 0.25 acres and will continue to establish the coppice over a few winters.

The coppiced hazel poles have already proven themselves to be very useful. I recently moved house, to be closer to our land, and used some of the thicker, straighter poles to hang curtains. The bark that I removed from the rods has made a beautiful mulch. Finally, and the purpose of this post, is to share the hurdle fence that I have woven to enclose the back garden. I will hang a gate soon to complete this process.

The fence has been made by hammering large diameter poles into the ground to create a framework. Around these, I wove thinner pieces of hazel (mostly, some sallow) and clipped off the edges. I tried to alternate the direction of the butts (the larger, bottom end of the rod) to keep the height of the fence even. I topped the fence with a braid made up of some local dogwood, mostly for a striking colour-contrast but also to firmly secure the woven rods in place. I definitely could have made a better job of the braid (known as heathering or ethering, locally) had I been able to source longer lengths of dogwood.

Nice, that finished top edge really looks good.

Here's a pic of an enclosure I made out of poplar coppice. It was about 15 feet in diameter and I used it to grow tomatoes in an area otherwise ravaged by deer. The indeterminate tomatoes I planted in there were able to climb up the wattle without any assistance.

Seeing your post reminds me that I need to get outside and harvest poles off my willow coppice. Thanks!

There's a bit of technique to getting the hazel to turn round at the end but it really helps the strength of the entire fence if you can master it. I have some over coppiced hazel here, i.e someone has cut them down repeatedly probably trying to kill them so I have a very very congested stool. Not sure the best way to come back from that. Do remember that all the cuts on a stool should slope (as much as possible) outwards so less water runs into the center.

I've had a go at the twist-and-turn technique but not had a great deal of success with it. The gate that I am making it using that for the hinges and I keep breaking the rods - I think because I have left them too long and they have started to dry, but I'm not certain.

For hurdles being moved (they were traditionally used to make temporary sheep folds and movable fencing) I believe the twisted ends are more critical.

The woven fence that I have made, however, is plenty strong enough so long as the uprights remain in the ground. The pressure of the woven rods holds the whole thing rigid and it didn't budge in the recent storms we had here. If I repeat the technique then I'll use more uprights - mostly as I struggled to find long enough rods to make it past three uprights for it to brace on.

I'm fully expecting the fence to fail after a couple of years. Hazel is quite perishable and it is in direct contact with the ground. If it fails at the base of the uprights (which would be my guess) then it may be possible to replace those and carry on - otherwise it is firewood!

As for sloping outwards - you're absolutely correct. Most of my stools have been cut this way, although I'm not too fastidious. Access can be problematic and, so I've been told, hazel is pretty resilient anyway - some of the old boys have said people used to cut it quickly and without much care and it rarely does the stool much damage.

The times I have seen people twisting were with half sticks as well which probably makes it easier.  My stepfather used to manage many hectares of hazel coppice for the council so while I haven't done much of it myself I've had the pleasure of watching others, making hurdles, thatchers and charcoal makers were all using various bits of the hazel.
I did make a little fence much longer but nowhere near as high as yours. I used elder uprights which was a mistake.. they all rooted even those i put in upside down!

Skandi Rogers wrote:The times I have seen people twisting were with half sticks as well which probably makes it easier.

That is interesting, I wasn't aware that you could twist the half/riven rods. I will have to have a go as it does seem to be the traditional way to do it in most places.

I can imagine that rooted uprights might be an advantage in some situations - such as fencing an area that will, ultimately, be hedged. I may be doing just that at some point as I plan to put in a few kilometers of new hedgerow and I want to avoid wire fences where possible. We don't have a huge amount of elder but I suspect I could use another, suckering plant - there is lots of elm around here, for example, although in not sure if I could find many suckers of the correct size. Willow would work very well but it doesn't make the best hedge, in my opinion. I'm quite surprised that elder took so well as I've often found it tricky to propagate.

Very interesting to learn of your stepfather's work and your experience there. I've not had the opportunity to talk to many people who have worked as coppicers - it is mostly old acquaintances of people or others newly picking it up.

Luke Mitchell wrote:

Very interesting to learn of your stepfather's work and your experience there. I've not had the opportunity to talk to many people who have worked as coppicers - it is mostly old acquaintances of people or others newly picking it up.

If you contact the local council they may have a volanteer program, (both Durham and Hampshire do that I know of, I imagine most do since it saves them money) Coppicing was one of the tasks they used volunteers for, and of course there was at least one person there with experience to guild everyone else. In Hampshire they were working on woods that have been coppiced for over 1000 years, and the "new" coppicing was quite successful in increasing the numbers of certain animals like the hazel doormouse. We even ended up with one in the house for R n' R (yes we had a license to handle them) Doormouse counting was a favourite late winter activity when I was a child.

I'm in touch with the National Park nearby and have been hedgelaying with them - a similar skill in many respects. It's good advice to follow though and perhaps I'll reach out to look for a group doing some coppice work, next winter.

For anyone else in my area reading, Coppice Wood College, near Cardigan, is often mentioned in conversation and sounds like a fantastic place. They run courses on coppice management (ash and hazel, I believe) and they only use hand tools (no noisy, polluting chainsaws).

With a more open canopy I'm excited to see what appears in the coppice that we have established in our woods. There is already evidence of primroses (and potentially other Primula sp., hard to tell at the moment) but I'm hoping for some bluebells too. I suspect the mixture of tangled, fern-covered woodland and the more open coppiced areas will be quite diverse.

I finally finished the gate on my hurdle fence. It's pretty solid and can support itself on the twisted hazel hinges (wrapped in sisal twine for looks + strength). I need to find a stouter post to hang it from though - for now it's a "pick it up and place it down" sort of gate!

The construction is four hazel rods, each shaved down at the ends to create half-lap joints. I bored a series of mortices in the top and bottom rods for the uprights and tapered those to fit. I then draw-pegged the frame together with small pieces of hardwood (I can't remember if I used ash, oak or sycamore now!), locking the uprights in place. The rest was finding suitable weavers and coercing them into position - easier said than done, there is a surprising amount of tension in a hazel rod!

Luke Mitchell wrote:For anyone else in my area reading, Coppice Wood College, near Cardigan, is often mentioned in conversation and sounds like a fantastic place. They run courses on coppice management (ash and hazel, I believe) and they only use hand tools (no noisy, polluting chainsaws).

Having done the 6 month coppicing and green woodworking course at Coppicewood College I can attest to the good quality of their tuition! Their old woodland was a mixed one but I'm not sure about the one they've recently moved to. I'm very envious of their workshop and extensive range of tools... and very glad to have had the opportunity to make use of them.

I'm sorry to be a bit off-topic, but is there such a thing as half-coppicing?  I have a few 6-7-year-old hazels with 3-4 main trunks 2 inches or so in diameter, plus they throw off lots of suckers each year.  Someday I will get nuts*, but this year I thinned everything back to the main trunks to get some light to a couple of understory plants, and I have a lot of lovely thin rods.  Is it feasible to coppice the small suckers yearly and still get a yearly nut harvest, or do I need to choose between wood and nuts?

*one bears nicely and then they go black/mildewy by harvest time, please tell me I don't need to tear out the whole shrub?

Morfydd St. Clair wrote:I'm sorry to be a bit off-topic, but is there such a thing as half-coppicing?

That's a very good question! My understanding is that cob/hazelnut plantations are usually managed separately and differently from coppice, with the former sited deliberately away from squirrels and the stools "plashed" to stimulate nut growth.

If you're experiencing mildew, it suggests that there is a lack of light and airflow around the stools. You could thin the growth each year without damaging the plant, likely improving its health, but my worry would be that the plant may divert its energy into producing regrowth rather than nuts.

As an alternative plan, you could coppice a single stool each year (thus establishing a 7-year rotation). You wouldn't get a huge number of rods but it would rejuvenate the stools and help with the light/air issue. I would expect the hazels to produce nuts towards the end of the rotation and, as they regrow after being cut, you could select for well-spaced stems and cut back the other rods after the first couple of years.

All of the above are suggestions and I haven't applied any of those methods - as I mentioned above, I'm new to coppicing myself. Perhaps Sam or another member with more experience can weigh in.

Re: split rods, I had seen the same, much easier to get them to twist around the end posts. Also, supposedly and maybe counterintuitively (to my mind anyway), their having been split means longer lasting fencing, apparently because the bark holds in moisture and so the wood rots more quickly. I have not tested this to verify, but thought I would throw it out there in case it is helpful, as it makes good sense.

Maria

So, 9 months after building the woven gate, it broke in a gale! The "hinges", which are twisted hazel rods, looped out from the frame and woven back into the gate, were the failure point. I'd wrapped them in twine to try and protect them but they received a lot of wear.

The rest of the fence is holding up well and there is no visible deterioration. The upright that I used for the gate post showed a little fungal growth but was in surprisingly good shape when I removed it.

I have read that the life expectancy for a hazel hurdle can be anything from 2 to 10 years. My suspicion is that my primitive fence will last about 5 years before the uprights/stakes need to be replaced. Whether I can do this without having to completely remake the fence is another question!