Some years ago Julian Evans, a retired professor of forestry and an owner of a small woodland, wrote a book to help new owners of woodlands.  It was called "Badgers, Beeches and Blisters" and has been extremely helpful to hundreds of owners, perhaps thousands.  This book has now been updated and re-written with new sections on emerging issues.  Some of the new material has been written by Will Rolls, author of "The Log Book" particularly chapters on woodfuel and tree diseases.  The new book is called appropriately - "Getting started in your own wood" and is just out and available online for £12.95.  It's easy to read and is a guide to looking after and caring for a small woodland. Read more...

In the 1830s the 6th Duke of Devonshire, owner of the Chatsworth Estate in Derbyshire, was one of the first to plant a pinetum and arboretum.  He did this in partnership with Joseph Paxton, who later became famous for building the Crystal Palace exhibition in London.  Taking a few acres of grazing land above the great house at Chatsworth, they set about planting trees systematically in accordance with the botanical classification used at the time.  It's very clear that both the Duke and Joseph Paxton had great fun in their creation of some large-scale landscape features.   Read more...

Woodlands get some protection from these "capital taxes" in order to encourage people to invest in forestry and to manage it commercially.  This blog explains in outline how these taxes affect woodlands.  Of course,  income from sale of timber is completely tax free whether the woodland is owned by individuals or held in a limited company, but relief from IHT (Inheritance Tax) and CGT (Capital Gains Tax) is not automatic. IHT is potentially charged at 40% on the woodland of a deceased owner, though that only applies if the deceased person had assets of more than £325,000.  There is also no IHT charged where assets are transferred to a spouse.  This 40% tax is on the market value of the woodland so one can see that without various exemptions it would be hard to keep woodland in the family and hard to keep rural estates together.  Fortunately for woodland owners IHT can be legitimately avoided, reduced or deferred in three different ways. Read more...

As a new and enthusiastic detectorist I needed to find sites to detect on.  I quickly found out that all the fields and woodlands in the UK belong to someone and you need their authority to detect on their land so I started contacting landowners.  When I asked Woodlands.co.uk if it was possible to have permission to detect in their woods I was surprised and excited to get a reply saying that there was a wood near where I live and that permission would probably be given.  I was overjoyed.  So, one fine morning I met up with Daniel Sharp and his dog - itself a detector of sorts - in the woods where I wanted to do my metal detecting.  After a short tour of the woodlands, Daniel explained the philosophy of www.woodlands.co.uk and the benefts of owning a wood of your own. Read more...

A few years ago I started deer stalking with my wife, Roxanna, for three reasons:- we wanted to do something useful to help control the burgeoning deer population, we like eating venison and we wanted to do something active in the country side. In the absence of the natural apex predators, such as Lynx, wolf and bear, deer are now threatening to become a serious nuisance in some parts of the country.   Deer have co-evolved with predators which have now been eliminated, so the deer are at risk of 'eating the bottom out' of British Woodlands; preventing the natural regeneration of trees for future generations. This creates a need for culling of selected deer but it needs to be done in a way that is safe and humane Read more...

The history of forest schools in the UK dates back to the 1800s, but it is only in the last 20 years that their organisation and scale have significantly developed. Forest schools are about learner-led activities in an outdoor natural space, ideally small woodlands, over an extended period of time. For example, forest school activities can include tree identification, shelter building, butterfly hunts, and animal track spotting. In recent years forest schools have exploded in popularity and they work alongside traditional classroom approaches. At the heart of the forest school ethos is an emphasis on offering every learner a regular opportunity to achieve. Read more...

Social and Therapeutic Horticulture (STH) currently fits under the umbrella term ‘Green Care’. Research on the effect of our natural environment upon us has shown that there are many ‘passive’ benefits to our general well-being .  Social and Therapeutic Horticulture (STH) is described as the purposeful use of horticultural activities to promote health and well being, and to facilitate social inclusion. But what does this actually mean? An STH Practitioner is someone who has studied and practised how to use horticulture as a tool to help improve or maintain the health and wellbeing of an individual, and how to create the right environment for change to take place.  STH is now being used in hospital settings, and also within the charity sector as a means to help a wide range of people including those with mental health conditions, learning disabilities, within the prison service, PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), spinal injury and dementia. Read more...

Fabulous paintings of trees and woodlands are currently on display at Dulwich Picture Gallery where there is an exhibition of the work of Emily Carr (1871 - 1945) They typically depict the native trees of the Pacific coast of Canada where Carr grew up and later settled, having first studied art in London, San Francisco and France. She used broad brush strokes and vivid colours in a style heavily influenced by her time spend in Europe in 1910/11 studying the post impressionists. Emily Carr was working shortly after the Canadian epidemics of the 1860s which killed half the indigenous population. As a result local people developed both an awareness of the fragility of life and a heightened concern for the natural environment. As Carr said, "it is wonderful to feel the grandest of Canada in the raw." Of course one has to remember, too, that people at that time were very much closer to nature in their daily lives: for example travel for Emily Carr would have been mostly by horse, food would have been more seasonal and without air conditioning the weather would have been much more immediate. Read more...