The Woodlands.co.uk Blog - Woodland Activities
Social Forestry in Glede Wood.
Visits to ‘Glede Wood’, Shropshire, provided for the use of the Small Woods Association by Woodlands.co.uk, have begun again with the start of our new project ‘Branch Out’
Our Social Forestry projects have targeted a range of disadvantaged groups from NEET’s (Not in Employment Education or Training) to women offenders. This time we are engaging members of Telford’s black and ethnic minority.
We have managed to gain some funding to buy a minibus, bought cheaply courtesy of Hitachi Capital, which allows us to pick people up from the town centre. As a result this broadens participation and removes another barrier to exploring the forestry sector. 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…
Making more use of small diameter wood
Making more use of small diameter wood
Tim Parry is passionate about putting small diameter timber to good use. He has worked in Gloucestershire woodlands for over 25 years after initially training as a tree surgeon. In 1987 he first saw the need for more active woodland management while clearing up windblown timber in Sussex, following the “Great Storm”. At that point he realised just how much wood goes to waste and he is constantly working out ways to make the most of all the timber produced by coppicing. Read more…
Spending time in woodland – an escape from the tyranny of modern time
Nature is the biggest public clock, but it operates in ways that contrast with our rather industrialised way of measuring time. Nature’s time is seasonal and much less uniform than the digital clock but it is also more forgiving. Things happen in a woodland when the time is right, rather than as a result of man-made regulation, and this very “natural” sense of time is what many people like about being in woodlands. Owners often tell us about how their woodland is an escape from modern life but it is particularly the escape from being a slave to clock-time which comes across most strongly. This enjoyment is of course linked to taking “time out” - it is a good thing to take time off work but it is a further escape to get away from being organised according to the clock. Read more…
Coed Gelli Uchaf – an update
When my wife, Jill, and I bought seven and a half acres of Welsh hillside woodland in the middle of winter 2011 we would have struggled to explain why. In fact, Jill had hardly seen the woods before we committed to them. It was all about vague dream and possibilities. My first visits were in the depth of a very wet Welsh winter, there were streams formal and informal everywhere; what trees there were were bare and unrecognisable; the ground uneven and treacherous with moss and gullies. What were we doing? Read more…
Small woodlands compete for top award at Excellence in Forestry Competition 2011
For the first time in the history of the prestigious Excellence in Forestry Competition, small woodlands were in the running for prizes this year. A new category for small woodlands attracted strong entries, with the winner’s prize being awarded to Rawhaw Wood in Northamptonshire, a Runner Up prize to Red Lodge Wood in Leicestershire and a Certificate of Merit to Vera’s Spinney in Nottinghamshire. Read more…
Hunter Gatherer
In my 2011 quest to only eat meat which I have hunted or gathered myself, I’ve learned a lot. Most people ask me “how” I do it, so I thought I would share a bit more on the actual tasks of finding the food. Read more…