Goslings Corner Wood, 23 January 2011
This was a new site and a new type of work for the LCG and we had a healthy
turnout of 14 volunteers (including two new vols) to find out what is
involved in 'layering'.
Kevin, the warden, met us at the site car park and ferried our tools and
brew kit into the wood by LWT
4x4. He gave us a demonstration of what layering involves, basically cutting
partially through a suitable small tree to lay it over and then making a
second cut at a suitable point along its length to bend the top up into a,
hopefully, new tree, burying the cut end in the ground to allow it to root.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Layering).
This is a common method of increasing coppice stools in a coppice woodland
and works well with hazel and ash trees. However, the idea here was to
increase the number of small leaf lime trees, this being a Lincolnshire
limewood. Kevin will discover in a year or so, whether this method works
with lime trees.
We managed to find about 10 suitable trees to layer, around the perimeter of
the most recently cut coup, but there were not that many to work on.
So after the first tea break, we moved on to coppicing along the path into
the wood to open out the ride and encourage the ground flora. Several brown
hairstreak butterfly eggs had been discovered in this woodland, presumably
laid by migrating butterflies from nearby Chambers farm wood. The coppicing
would encourage this rare butterfly, as well as continue the management plan
for the woodland.
We
had a small, contained bonfire to consume some of the cut material, but much
of it was cut into18 inch lengths and scattered across the ground.
Apparently the material rots down well and avoids the enrichment caused by
bonfires and avoids having too many habitat piles. Not as much fun as having
a bonfire though!
Julian
