Saturday 7 October 2017

Storm damage and the start of this season's coppicing

We've had some windy weather over the past week, and a branch fell from quite high in an oak tree, damaging another branch on the way down. Having removed the one that fell, the damaged one was still attached:

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As I cut up the fallen one, it was obvious it hadn't been healthy, with the branch divided in two with a rotten bit in the middle. Hard to spot when it's high up a tree though...
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The Tirfor winch got it down easily (there's a video of me using it on another branch here):
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I found the oak was pretty easy to spilt using the method I learned from Norwegian Wood:
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So before long I had a nice pile of wood stacked to season for future use:
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I left the knotty bits for wildlife use, though I expect Tracy's class will appreciate them for their dens as well!
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This season's coppicing is also underway now, here's a couple of views, each with a photo from early on, and after a few days' work.
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One of the trees I've coppiced in this area is a Hornbeam, and I've cut it a short distance above the ground to see if I can get it to grow as a mini-pollard.
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My goal is that it might end up looking like this one, growing a short distance away:
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I've also been trying some layering, which basically creates a clone of a coppice stool to fill in gaps. You make a peg from a branch, like this:
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Then bend a stem of the coppice stool over to touch the ground - you usually need to slice part way through it near the base to enable this.
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You then scrape off the bark where it's touching the ground, and hammer the peg in to hold it in place, with a bit of soil over the top:
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The idea is that it will develop roots, and after a couple of years can be severed from the original coppice stool. Time will tell if it works in this case...

Mike

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