The Woodlands.co.uk Blog - September 2009
SOS: Save Our Sedge – woodland plants in decline?
A worrying decline in native woodland plants has been highlighted in the news this week by the conservation charity Plantlife. The Government-funded Countryside Survey has found that, although England is now less intensively farmed than ten years ago, wild plants and animals are not doing as well as might be expected. Britain has lost the equivalent of 16,000 miles of hedgerow or 6% in the last ten years. Read more…
Planting a Tree – Part Two
Part Two of our video guide to planting trees in your woodland with Richard Scholfield, Woodland.co.uk’s Estates Manager. Tips and guidance on protecting your young trees and giving them the best start.
The Ghost of Workers Past Part 2: Delving into the history hidden in your woodland
Identifying Features – banks and ditches
“I don’t think my wood has any archaeology in it,” somebody said to me recently. So, what are the chances of finding anything archaeological in your wood? And if you do, what is it likely to be? In all the woods I’ve looked at there has always been something archaeological, either in the trees, the ground flora or in the bumps on the ground. So the chances of finding archaeological features in your own woodland are very high. Wherever your wood is, there is a number of features which are more commonly found than others, and we’ll look at those first. Read more…
Planting a Tree – Part One
Invaluable guidance and tips on planting trees in your woodland in a two-part video presentation. Richard Scholfield, Woodland.co.uk’s Estates Manager for more than 20 years, explains how to care for your young trees when they arrive from the nursery, and the best method of planting. Read more…
The Ghost of Workers Past: Delving into the history hidden in your woodland Part 1
This is the first of a series of short articles in which I hope to de-mystify some aspects of woodland archaeology. To many people, archaeology means ‘excavating holes with little trowels’ and ‘Time Team’. But the first thing I should point out is that digging holes is one of the last things archaeologists do; they have a look at the ‘humps and bumps’ first, and that’s what we’ll be doing. Read more…
Fungi Fanatics
Summer may well be coming to an end, but as the nights draw in, the temperatures drop, the long rains set in and the leaves start to fall, the woodlands take on a new lease of life. As any of the legions of fungi fanatics will tell you, a forage around the forests in Autumn can be as exhilarating as a safari across the Serengeti. Read more…
Discovering Long Wood – a year in the life of a small wood – August
Not just a whole load of old bracken after all … By August, Heather has discovered no
less than eleven varieties of fern in Long Wood while Rodney has been
building up his log structure… read Heather’s diary entry for AugustRead more…