What have you done on the land today?

This is a thread to cover what we are doing in Land Management that are not covered elsewhere.

The broard defintion will be working on the principle of the definitions of zones 3,4 & 5 of permaculture (Farmland, rough grazing and woodland, Wilderness) but obviously allowing specific aspects to be covered elsewhere, eg 'What have I done in the Woods today?'.

At the week-end Zoe's B-in-L and I removed 100m of old wire fencing from between the veg patch and the stream. It was always a problem to maintain, the posts were rotten and now we have a view of the stream. It also gives us room for more current bushes!!!

Perhaps the best time of year for hope and long term management.... Yes we have started planting trees again.

Managed to add 17 hazels to the new coppice today plus 4 hawthorns to a new hedge.

I have wanted to grow a hazel to coppice for some time - at school on Friday an email went round to say that there were some small saplings of various sorts (hazel, cherry, crab apples etc) which we could have in return for a donation to Children in Need. I went to find them with the intention of snapping up a hazel, and discovered that some of the younger pupuls had been given the task of potting them up and labelling them. They had been fairly casual with the labelling - there was a crab apple and I think a cherry labelled 'hazel' (they were Prunus var. anyway) and some dead looking sticks. Didn't want to plant something which turned out to not be a hazel so I wimped out and ordered one from the internet!

They would be the hedgerow packs supplied free to schools and groups for planting on there own land by the woodland trust and they should certainly not be giving them away
We have them for guides/brownies and have planted them on the church grounds

In the past we have sold off the last few which were not planted Gail...the alternative would have been for them to be chucked away....... so it miight well have been for that reason.

Dandelion if you want a Hazel we have lots of saplings to dig up.

A couple of days back we managed to plant 8 silver birches, two ginko trees and 5 weeping willow (whips that will have to be thinned to three max!) And no this list is not going to end with a partridge in a pair tree! (as we have no money to buy fruit trees!!!)

Dandelion wrote:I have wanted to grow a hazel to coppice for some time ....

:bigclap:

It is a "tree" that can be squeezed into "small" spaces. They can be planted quite close together to make the re-grow straight especially if you intend to coppice them often. Some say down to 1.6m apart but I think 2.3m is the forestry commission recommended distance. I have a purple filbert which is definitely worth having!

That's very helpful advice Zoe - thank you. The little sapling has arrived (looking much more like a hazel than the ones at school!!) but because the weather is so cold I've put it in a pot of compost in the unheated utility room until the ground thaws out. I would love to plant more trees, but our garden is dominated by a huge Western Red cedar which doesn't leave much scope. We have several fruit trees on dwarfing rootstocks though, and the hazel is a bit of an experiment!

mm having seen the ( admittedly really nice) tree I would have it down as it really IS very dominant....but I fully understand why you might not want to do that.....

A trickey one, that!

Dandelion get it it in the ground now or you may not be able to plant it at all for several months

and at the mo the ground is not hard frozen, despite a few cold nights...

but if you leave it the ground will possibly be frozen solid until March if we have weather like last year!

Dandelion wrote: our garden is dominated by a huge Western Red cedar which doesn't leave much scope.

You mean one of those really long thin ceders that grow to 45m??!!! :bigaston: What is its girth at present, may I ask? I also think I would plant the hazel now if the ground is not frozen, and wrap some fleece around it.

With any trees bought now make sure the roots do not get frozen. Heal in deep if you have been court out with bare rooted!

It's not strictly a cedar (even though that's what it's called) - it's what Native Americans use to carve totem poles. I suppose it's probably 75 - 100 feet high. I was going to try to estimate the girth, but have just been out with MrD and we think it's about 3 and a half metres. (We forget to take a torch, but never mind!)
We have talked about whether to have the tree felled, but it's so large that it would be a professional and expensive job - there are so many things which need doing on the house which are a better use of money. It also provides habitats for many birds and insects, and a place for the chickens to shelter.

The ground is pretty frozen already, which is why I've potted the hazel up. It's only a tiny little slip of a thing - it looks as if it's been grown in a root trainer pot, and the roots are very small and undeveloped, so I think it'll be fine in a pot until things warm up a bit.

Planted 5 beech trees in a line that should be one side to an avenue if all goes well. The grass was frozen but the ground still not too cold and the worms were still at the sod layer (to the delight of the chicken assistants) but we think we may have to stop unless there is a warm break soon. Still have 92 trees left to plant!

that sounds fantastic. I have been cutting up a very large and dead fallen beech tree for a solstice fire, weather permitting. if its too windy or raining, I shall stack it and wait.

Unfortunatly nothing as satisfying as chopping up firewood for the solstice...

I took out another wire fence from the other side of the vegi patch today. It would have been very easy apart from the old man's beard, cherry & apple suckers and the huge bay tree growing through it! I can now strim the bank it was 'protecting'!

by strim do you mean string trimming?

I think strimming is more violent, Mr s..

http://www.tools4thegarden.co.uk/Strimmers-&-Brushcutters/C.-Petrol-Strimmers-&-Petrol-Brushcutters/c-26-71-91/?gclid=CMXL28Pk7aUCFVBO4QodryllpQ

mr_sfstk8d wrote:by strim do you mean string trimming?

I think it would be better to describe it as brush cutting as the nylon string will not do the job. The very large stilh beasty will have to have the blade head on it to get through the sapplings.

Strimming done yesterday and it all looks much better.... the fence was starting to look like a frozen sunami of vegitation about to crash onto the vegi patch!

Not done anything here today, but was coppicing/brash clearing at a client's today and he was willing to exchange an hour of work for a christmas tree in his garden. This fine specimen that is now standing in the corner of the living room. Even in its reduced height format it is still 2.8m tall.