A view from the field by Ranger James

Happy new year everyone!

I Thought it would be a good idea to talk a little about the work the volunteers and myself have been doing in the woodland recently as it often raises questions.

Most woodland in the UK requires some level of active management to maintain biodiversity and sustain natural regeneration. We have a mixture of ancient woodland (designated as woodland that has existed pre1600) and secondary woodland (planted after 1600) as well as trees planted more recently that aren’t quite woodland yet!

This winter in the ancient woodland you may well have noticed we have continued with a programme of slowly opening up the woodland, we have reduced holly, cut down hazel and pulled up a fair amount of bramble.

The holly is a wonderful native evergreen that just spreads a little too quickly, it casts shade across the woodland floor impacting on bulbs and fungus that enjoy the dappled sunlight. More permanently it also impacts on the mature deciduous trees ability to regenerate. If an oak drops its acorns under a holly tree and those oak saplings get no light they will be very unlikely to ever get enough energy to outcompete other things in wood and we would gradually lose the oaks (and other broadleaf species) in the wood as they cannot replace themselves. We’re aiming for not more than 10% coverage of holly in the woodland.

The hazel is a particular favourite tree of mine due to its many uses so why cut it down? Well, what we’re doing with the hazel is coppicing it, coppicing is a traditional technique when done correctly actually encourages growth, and in the case of hazel it loves to be coppiced! Often growing back significantly more stems than was originally cut from it. This makes it an excellent tree to back fill the space left by the hollies while still allowing light to reach the woodland floor. Also as the regrowth in a woodland is often very straight it can be coppiced again a desired intervals to harvest long pieces that can be used for support canes in the garden, stakes for hedgelaying or maybe made into walking sticks!

The bramble pulls up very easily in the soft loose woodland soil and we’re not even worried about removing all the roots, this is about managing something that would happily take over if left unchecked, again choking out broad leaf tree saplings before they have chance to get tall enough to compete but leaving plenty of blackberries for the various creatures looking to get fat before the winter comes.

As we cut and pull all this material you will have noticed that we then pile it all up along the path edges pinned together with wooden stakes. This is called dead hedging (as apposed to hedgelaying which you do with living trees) the dead hedge is a really useful structure. Firstly it provides somewhere to stack all the material, which is always more than you think it’s going to be! It also provides great habitat for a range of invertebrates such as beetles that help to break down dead material. It also creates a simple barrier to discourage people walking on the section of woodland we’re working on, reducing the impact of people and dogs on fungus, emerging bulbs, tiny tree saplings, even repeatedly walking along the same routes can create areas of root compaction which in the longer term can shorten the life of trees.

Over the rest of winter, you should see some more understory planting with some extra hazels and also some young wild service trees (Sorbus torminalis as the common name often raises questions!) that are growing in an inappropriate location in another park and my colleagues there definitely don’t want to remove them without them having somewhere to go! There will also be a lot (2000+) trees going into the Downham side of the park as part of the regeneration works happening there.

If woodland management sounds super exciting to you and you’d like to get involved this winter (we stop in spring for bird nesting) then please drop a line to me at beckenhamplacepark@lewisham.gov.uk