The Woodlands.co.uk Blog
Unseasonal weather
We have experienced an extended and warm autumn, and now true to Pliny’s words -
winter weather has now firmly settled upon us. The temperature is down to “more representative” seasonal values for December, and cold, high winds have recently lashed Scotland and other parts of the U.K.
The warmest Autumn (for some 300 + years) was in 2006, when the temperature was some 2.4 / 3 oC above the seasonal average ; places like Kinlochewe recording a daytime temperature of 22.5 oC. The recent mild weather * was due to an unusual pattern of high altitude winds over the Continent. The course of the jet stream meant that there were southerly winds and relatively settled conditions over the United Kingdom.
Call for entries for prestigious Small Woodlands award in the South West
Caring for a woodland is a labour of love that takes commitment, hard work and altruism. Some of that conservation work may not yield fruit for a generation, but when it does, it boosts entire communities. By recognising the efforts of woodland owners, we may inspire others to do the same. So, for the second year running, Woodlands.co.uk are sponsoring the Small Woodlands category in the prestigious Royal Forestry Society (RFS) Woodlands Awards and you are warmly invited to participate. Read more…
Holly – a really useful tree
In various older texts on botany and gardening, it is said that ‘ … in Germany, Holly abounds in many forests… In France, it is abundant, more particularly in Brittany. The tree appears to attain a larger size in England than in other parts of Europe“ Certainly, in the past there were large areas where Holly was abundant. For example, Needwood Forest in Staffordshire. This was a significant and ancient Midlands forest. However, the Enclosure Act of 1803 allowed for the felling of large numbers of trees; this took some time to complete. In his ‘Plant Book’, Professor David Mabberley notes that some 150,000 holly trees were taken from Needwood about this time, to provide bobbins for the cotton mills of Lancashire. (Bagot’s Wood is said to be the largest existing piece of this ancient wood). Read more…
Woodlands are more than just collections of trees
A leaf usually has a lifetime of only a single year but is often seen as the basic building-block of a forest which lasts for much, much longer. A tree has a lifetime of about 100 times as long as a leaf, with a lifespan of about 100 years. Looking on a larger scale, the forest may have a life of 10,000 years or about 100 times that of the individual tree. So these three elements – leaves, trees and forests – are each a couple of orders of magnitude apart in their length of life, yet they are vitally reliant on each other, and we instinctively think of a causal chain, with leaves leading to trees and trees leading to forests. Read more…
National Tree Week 2011 – 26th November to 4th December
The Tree Council’s annual tree weeks have been an undoubted success, emanating from the 1973 “Plant a tree in ’73” campaign (some rather cynical individuals chanted “cut it down in ’74”) and must have resulted in not only in promoting the whole idea of trees but in planting many thousands across the country in parks, gardens, roadsides, corners of farmland and development sites to name but a few. The Tree Coucil ( http://www.treecouncil.org.uk) is our foremost campaigner and umbrella body for UK organisations involved in tree planting, care and conservation.
Forestry and woodlands are a long-term business but those of us planting in ’73 can see the fruits of our labours: we stand back and look up at the hornbeam, hazel, hawthorn and fieldmaple spreading wide and high; the oak, ash, beech and birch are trees, a miraculous metamorphosis from those tiny whips planted during the cold winter months – it seems like yesterday. We plant for the next generation but once established trees grow quickly so we can all enjoy watching them develop. Read more…
How old are woodland buyers?
Of course woodland buyers can be any age (as long as they are above 18 in order to be able to enter into a contract for a land purchase). However, we decided to do a study of actual woodland buyers to see how old they actually were when they bought the woodland and most people were happy to tell us. The study was of the individuals responding to the telephone questionnaire rather than the average age of the couple, where it was bought jointly – but we assume this will not have distorted out results significantly. Read more…
Phytoliths, metals and phytoremediation.
Plants take up essential nutrients (nitrates, phosphates, potassium, magnesium etc) through their roots, but some also take up other, more unusual substances – such as silicon, nickel, cadmium, copper, cobalt.
Grasses, in particular, are known to take up silicon and then deposit it in their leaves. The silicon that they absorb is converted into tiny granules called phytoliths, which are often located under the waxy cuticle. Read more…
Surveying a woodland
When I went looking for woodland to buy, I looked at the ground before the trees, which probably sounds a bit odd. If you’ve seen people looking at the floor in a car park and wondered what on earth they were doing; unless they’ve dropped their keys, they’re probably botanists. What is growing on the ground can tell you all sorts of things like how old the woodland is and what type of soil you have. I am only an amateur and although I do have the advantage of some professional training in the field of surveying for wildlife, you don’t need it if you want to survey your own wood. Read more…