By the Session Leader:
It seems an
illogical and unending cycle, year by year:
- First you let your trees grow tall.
- Then cut them down to stump, or ‘stool’, level.
- Next protect the stumps from the wildlife, so that they can grow again.
- When they are mature enough to deter the wildlife, remove the protection.
- Lastly, go back to 1) and start again.
[Like painting this? – Ed.]
At Green Gym
we have been through all the tree-coppicing phases in different years. So this Tuesday it came as no surprise that our task was to be no. 4 in that cycle. If we had
finished that job early enough, we could have gone on to some of the coppiced stumps that needed # 3,
but there were plenty of # 4s to work on.
So, a walk
over the hills and down to the woods, under a welcoming sky …
watched by
the locals …
till we
reached the forest of netting protecting the coppiced stools:
Most were
established enough to have their protection removed:
Netting was
rolled up, and taken to the top by the drive ready to be reused:
The stakes also
had to be removed, some with surprising ease, others with difficulty:
[Fortunately, that is only a cry of
indignant surprise, not pain on part of volunteer. – Ed.]
Some stools
had not matured enough to withstand the deer, and were left for another year:
A site
warden was always on hand to help and advise which stools should be left for
this year:
By session end
we had cleared netting and posts from the mature stools. Which also revealed some brilliant fungi:
A pleasant,
dry day. The only snag: at end of play, the long walk back uphill.
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