If the tree is normally only seen from one side, you can choose to cut down one half of it - either the front, or the back, as it were. However, this leaves a big hole in the horizon, in which case you can do what I call a cosmetic coppice: this is where you cut out the largest, ie oldest, of the re-grown stems, leaving a thinned-out selection to give some vertical cover, while the new shoots grow. Pull out any seedlings of other trees which you may well find lurking in the centre, and clear out any ivy etc that was hidden by the larger growth.ĭrastic, but simple, and historically correct. The obvious suggestion is that it is high time they were coppiced again! Get out the bowsaw, and cut every single stem down, as low as you can. They are also what you might call "public property" as they are on land which is accessed by the public, so it's important that they are both safe, and handsome to look at. John's trees are more historical: he thinks that they may be at least 50 years old, they may well be much, much older. That one was more of a decorative tree than a crop tree, and the owners didn't want it coppiced, they just wanted to be able to get up and down their steps in safety. I wrote about the general principles of coppicing some time ago, when I had to restore a much smaller Hazel. So by allowing a coppiced tree to revert into being a "proper" tree, we are actually killing it.Īnd, of course, a renovated tree just looks better! Overgrown coppices such as John's ones, above, are unsightly, they are full of weedy choking growth, there is a risk of dead limbs dropping, and there will be lots of dead wood in the centre, which will be hosting pests and diseases: far better to put in a bit of work to restore the tree. Honestly, that's true! There are coppiced trees which are hundreds of years old. There are several reasons for wanting to renovate old coppices: they are part of our agricultural and social heritage, for a start.Īlso, coppicing keeps the tree in a "juvenile" state, so that it does not ever grow old and die, the way that single-trunk, "normal" trees do. John asked what the best plan would be, to renovate these trees. This is definitely the first thing to do: clear away everything other than Hazel, including ivy, brambles, and anything else growing around the base. Here's a picture of one of them, half-way though the holly clearance: So, this question: John said that he has been asked to renovate a couple of very old coppiced Hazels, which were choked with holly at the base, and are very congested. You are probably also familiar with pollarded street trees: this is just coppicing at a higher point above the ground. In fact, the very name "copse" means an area of coppiced woodland. You can see them everywhere: next time you are out for a walk, or visiting a stately home, look at any areas of woodland that you pass, and check out the trunks: are they all one-trunk-per-tree? Or do some of the trees appear to have multiple stems, all sprouting from the ground? These are the remains of old coppicing. We don't make our own walking sticks, or fences, or hurdles: we don't make our own charcoal, either! So most of the coppiced woodlands have been left to return to the wild, over the last 50 years or more. This is usually seen on trees such as Hazel, Willow and Sweet Chestnut, but is also used for Oak, Lime, Alder: depending on what the trees were to be used for.Īlas, these days we don't need much coppiced wood: we don't burn faggots (bundles) of thin wood, we buy in seasoned and chopped hardwood. When they are big enough, they are all cut off at the same time, and the cycle repeats. These new shoots will all be pretty much the same size as each other: so instead of one big central trunk with a lot of smaller, wiggly side branches, you get a whole bunch of same-sized shoots, and because they are crowded together, they fight for the light, which means they grow up vertically, nice and straight. It involves repeatedly chopping a young tree down to - usually - ankle height, which prompts it to send up new shoots from the chopped base. Now, before we get on to what to do with it, a quick reminder about coppicing: time out of mind, it was a way of managing woodlands, in order to produce useable materials for fencing, furniture, firewood and fodder - all sorts of things. Last week, I received a question: what to do with an enormously overgrown old Hazel coppice.
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