The Tree field Skye

Emmmm. coffee with Nancy this morning.  My second viewing of her video, and sad to say no Ents nor any views of her fur babies.  Still a nice morning !

Nancy Reading wrote:Nancycam....

A ten minute walk down the tree field in January - just an overview. Not great quality I'm afraid. I think I'll have another go at reinstating the sound on my cameraphone. This was with the proper camera and there is rather a lot of camera shake.

We who've been watching this, are now very excited to see if you might do Spring, Summer & Autumn versions of this walk-through!

I was wondering, would it be helpful to have a go a documenting some more of all this knowledge in your head about just what all these wonderful plants & guilds are planned to do, and doing in practice?

Deane Adams wrote:Emmmm. coffee with Nancy this morning.  My second viewing of her video, and sad to say no Ents nor any views of her fur babies.  Still a nice morning !

I'll have a cup of tea of course Deane!
There are a couple of tails disappearing at various times, but no complete dogs to see this time They quite often photobomb my shots, so no doubt they will feature in future!

Ac Baker wrote:We who've been watching this, are now very excited to see if you might do Spring, Summer & Autumn versions of this walk-through!

I could do that; spring and summer are always fun. Autumn is a bit more tricky to identify as late summer slips into winter sometimes..

I was wondering, would it be helpful to have a go a documenting some more of all this knowledge in your head about just what all these wonderful plants & guilds are planned to do, and doing in practice?

I'm happy to do that. Do you think video will work better than written posts? Any special requests? I suspect most areas will be more interesting when things are growing!
I'll maybe have a look at the coppice trees though, once I've finished cutting and started tidying up a bit. At the moment it is a bit like a disaster area in places with fallen trees!

Nancy Reading wrote:

Ac Baker wrote:We who've been watching this, are now very excited to see if you might do Spring, Summer & Autumn versions of this walk-through!

I could do that; spring and summer are always fun. Autumn is a bit more tricky to identify as late summer slips into winter sometimes..

Ah, true: mid-September, once the midges go down, I was thinking!

Nancy Reading wrote:

Ac Baker wrote:I was wondering, would it be helpful to have a go a documenting some more of all this knowledge in your head about just what all these wonderful plants & guilds are planned to do, and doing in practice?

I'm happy to do that. Do you think video will work better than written posts? Any special requests? I suspect most areas will be more interesting when things are growing!
I'll maybe have a look at the coppice trees though, once I've finished cutting and started tidying up a bit. At the moment it is a bit like a disaster area in places with fallen trees!

I was thinking I might be able to help with transcribing, if you narrate a video?

A timely post as the coppicing trees thread has been in the dailyish - I've nearly finished coppicing my trees for next year's firewood supply. Over the winter I identified 6 different areas that I felt were up to coppicing size including my first area of hazel

The hazel particularly tends to self coppice: that is the larger trunks slow down or die, and young shoots come up again from the base. These stools are from 2011, so 13 years old and I felt that they were slowing down a bit, but that the trunks were of a reasonable size. There should be enough for a dozen or so logs as big as my forearm, and lots a little smaller that should be good hot burning once they have cured. Lots and lots of smaller sticks or good length, but very branched so no good for splitting, however I may use them to make a dog resistance fence around my new GAMCOD planting or Aronia beds. The dogs do tend to go digging for mices (much to the detriment of my holly cuttings ) and if I mulch with seaweed they like to eat that - a little is OK but they make a mess, and if the seaweed is dry it is dangerous as it can swell in their tummies.

Hazel first coppice cut

I'm not sure whether the regrowth will be good for firewood, or nice enough for craft uses - I'm hoping it will grow quickly and straighter, so it probably depends on how long I leave it before cutting again. Longer cycle will be better for firewood (and maybe nuts), shorter for craft uses. The trees were quite exposed when first planted, but have a nice amount of shelter from the spruce now, so It should grow nicely. I also pollarded one wild cherry to give them more light and cut down another (that is suckering around). I may try and graft onto the pollarded cherry tree next year....

Most of the trees I cut are still alder - those have grown the quickest and we planted the most. However I did cut down a couple of birch trees next to one of my wood shelters. I do hope they grow back, they do seem a bit more tempermental. Lots of besom broom potential here!

two birch trees next to log shelter

I do like the birch trees! The bark is so pretty when it starts peeling and you get the white and cream colours coming on the trunk. I've seen some lovely 'shrink pots' which I'd like to have a go at, but always seem to miss the moment....

Tidying up takes a long time, but the main thing is to get the trees down before the sap rises too much. I want the trees to come back strongly and birch and maple (I cut down one field maple) can bleed badly if cut too late. I just have one patch of alder on the escarpment to do and that is all the trees cut then. The forecast is good at the moment, so hopefully I will get that done on Friday

starting to tidy up the alder cut

My husband is very sad to see the trees down, although I do tell him they will come back, he doesn't like the bushy character or the regrowth so much as the original tree trunks.....There will be a fair amount of trees left to grow around the edges are where the growth is slower, but that doesn't seem to appease him much.

I forgot this picture of the mess!

breaking eggs

Since the last post I have mostly been tidying up the mess....Still need to get the newly cut trees cut to length and away in my wood shelters. I have been emptying those back up the hill into the wood shed, so last year's wood is now handy for use.

Spring seems to have come slightly early this year, so I have been enjoying a few weeks of good weather. I have been using it to plant a few more trees down in the tree field. As I think I mentioned above, there are a couple of spots where the planting is a bit sparse, so I got some more alder, rowan and hornbeam to patch in. I also transplanted a few spruce that had seeded into the trackways near the house, a couple of hazel and some apple trees I had grown from pips.
This area next to the North boundary feels a little exposed, so I have planted a good lot of alder there that should fill in nicely between the end of the windbreak and the patch of spruce:

gap near north boundary

I planted some of the spruce to the North of my annual growing area. These will give a bit of upwind protection as well as protecting the coppice trees downwind.

windbreak trees to North of growing area

The grass is starting to grow, and the early spring flowers: celandine, primrose and coltsfoot starting to come into flower. Lots to do over the next few weeks....

Second video now live - Coppicing overview. This was the second version I took; the first version was even worse 'Nancy-cam'! Sorry no dogs again!
I made a mistake on the commentary - the trees here are fifteen year old, not ten years old.



You can see the real difference in the amount of wood grown on a coppiced stool compared to a tree planted at the same time. Also not all the trees grow back. The alder are fairly tough, I probably lose 5% or less, but the birch have quite high mortality. I suspect this is location as well as species dependent. The age of the tree when it is cut will also affect how well it comes back - if it is too old, or possibly too young, it is more likely to die.

Ac Baker wrote:We who've been watching this, are now very excited to see if you might do Spring, Summer & Autumn versions of this walk-through!

Spring walk through as requested!



No furbabies - they were with me for take one, but the camera konked out half way down, so I had to start again and Dyson isn't up for too many walks up the hill in the sunshine. You might notice Mr. Nancy who looks like he is restraining one of the dogs from joining me; I'm not sure which as I didn't see them when I took the video. Sorry about the noise at the end - that's him getting the mower going again to cut some more of the paths.

Apologies again for the rubbish video quality, I'm suspecting thatg auto focus and shake are not operating correctly...