Good Coppice, Bad Coppice

Six of us had fun today trying our hands at coppicing in Manor Valley Woods.

Working in pairs we cut the Hazel stools down pretty much to ground level ensuring that the cuts were at an angle that allowed water to drain away from the centre and avoid it rotting.

While Dave and Danica, and Jason and Emma worked hard sawing away at the branches, Julie and Paul carried them away to be used as a natural bit of Hazel fencing.

There were some mixed feelings about this, it certainly felt pretty drastic but we learned that this encourages longer term growth and can extend the life of the tree from around 80 years to 1000! In fact our eager beavers today were performing a role traditionally performed by actual beavers who surely know what they are doing!

The coppicing also has the benefit of allowing more light into the space which can encourage other surrounding growth. So all good - even if it felt bad.

Thanks to Danica for the pun.