Returning the trees to the forest of Wychwood
The Background
The estate is located on land that was formerly the forest of Wychwood, an ancient woodland that once covered large tracts of West Oxfordshire and was used by medieval kings as their hunting grounds. This forested region was also dotted with settlements and wood pasture with grazing animals. The remnants of the ancient forest cling in small mid green rectangular patches above the washed green and silver arable fields that wash the valleys.
The 200-acre estate we are transforming is peppered sparingly with recently planted woodland belts some as old as 50 years but mostly 20 to 30, planted primarily for game birds and timber. The trees, a mix of oak, larch, lime, field maples, silver birch, wild cherry, Scot’s pine, willow, dogwood, cornus and a few whitebeam, are densely planted, with, having had no management they form tight, unnatural rows. The forest floor is quiet and dark, most lower strata plants outcompeted by the dense canopy above and the woodland edges have been planted with hedging to keep out the wind and the pheasants in. Outside the woodland are large arable fields bounded by grown-out mixed native hedges and mature standard oaks ash and beech.
The majority of the estate is former arable land though it’s a wonder any farmer ever managed to coax a crop from it. The ground is littered with limestone rubble that emerges from the thin, fine soil; a product of years of battering by tilling and chemicals and soil lost through the ravages of wind and rain on bare earth. It’s more like a beach than a field: a far cry from the rich diversity of the forest soil biome it once was. The slope of the land makes matters worse. With every rainfall, yet more top-soil is washed into the perennially damp corners and gulleys.
TreeSource was mandated to transform the estate into a thriving and diverse haven for wildlife and for people. Our ever-evolving design, includes wide, riding courses that meander and swoop through copses and wildflower rich glades: much as the medieval inhabitants of this region would have maintained. The existing woodlands will expand and thin and hedgerows will be reinstated to provide habitat corridors and equestrian hurdles. Finally, rich sources of food for both wildlife and people will be included in the form of diverse underplanting and fodder, fruit and nut trees.
The Challenge
Our first challenge was to stabilise the soils on the fields then build soil volume and health. A carpet of wild flowers, selected for their local origin and suitability, was sown in the spring and quickly burst into a cacophony of high, bright blooms. With the meadow, a multitude of species have appeared. On our estate walk last week we saw several hares, red kites and plenty of buzzing insects. It doesn’t take long for nature to take advantage of new habitats.
Wild flowers do well on poor soils, not so much because they dislike fertility but because the weeds with which they compete are less adapted to the lack of nutrition. We’ll cut this sward once the seed has set, but leave the residue on the land to start the process of soil regeneration: it’ll be some years before the fertility rises to the point that the weeds could be problem. By that point, the soil biology will be more complex meaning there will be more ecological niches to be colonised and filled by diverse species allowing less scope for weeds to inundate the landscape.
Choosing TreeSource
And so, into the woods…. Here, we have two main objectives: expand the wooded areas and thin the trees to create an environment more akin to an ancient glade and grove landscape. To do this, we’ve transplanted hundreds of healthy, but supressed trees using our tree-spade. There are only a few of these spades in the country and they allow us to move beautiful, mature trees, avoiding the waste of living trees normally inherent to forest management, and fulfilling both our woodland development objectives at one go. We transplant trees that are typically up to 30 years old and well-branched but struggling for light in the dense canopy. We’ve also worked hard to break up the straight lines of the plantations to mimic natural woodland.
It’s hard to believe that the new stands of tall, densely leafed trees were only recently cowering under the woodlands’ dense green ceiling. Even we’re surprised at how healthy they are. Their closely packed root-balls, created as a reaction to suppression, meant were able to dig up much of it with the spade and this naturally helps with regrowth in the new location. However, perhaps just as importantly, the soil brought with the tree from the forest is rich in fungal and bacterial communities including the mycorrhizal associations on which all trees rely upon for long term survival. This fungal soil transplant has been shown to inoculate the new site with the right assemblages to proliferate and continue to support the transplanted trees growth but also to speed up connectivity with younger new trees imported into the site to add greater age and species diversity.
The trees are supported using a guying and protection system that minimises plastic use: hessian wrapping and coppice hazel poles wrap the stems to protect from sun scorch and deer rubbing, and on the larger trees, steel cable is used for support. We’re still looking for a durable solution to the rubber stem protection tube that we use to stop the cable rubbing the tree stem. While both the wire and tubing is reusable we would like to find a suitable biodegrable system to avoid any plastic items in our tree planting.
The Solution
Reinstating the coppicing of the estates’ many willows is a key element in our design. We’ve transplanted several and these water-loving trees are doing well in the damp field corners. We’ll continue to coppice on a roughly 3-year cycle, chipping the cuttings and spreading them amongst the transplanted trees. In terms of fertility, this chip is soil-building gold dust. Ramial woodchip is produced from twigs and branches thinner than 7cm which are the most nutritionally rich parts of the tree and when spread on the land, promote soil biological diversity and fertility.
Older wood is also incredibly useful on the site. We’ve left fallen trees to decay where possible, allowing decomposition to recycle their nutrients in to the soil and chipped tonnes and tonnes of prunings and thinnings to spread or compost.
The fast-growing willows are also helping us avoid damage from deer. Deer are demonstrating a love of fresh willow shoots from coppiced stools and will seek it out preferentially over other trees. The low growing coppice shoots make an exceptional snack naturally rich in salicylic acid which, as the active ingredient in aspirin, is thought to provide the animals with pain and inflammatory relief. We’re also experimenting with alternative food sources for the squirrels who love bark so much that they sometimes strip it so severely as to kill the tree.
A diverse mix of fruit and nut trees have been brought in and added to the woodland expansion belts These provide additional layers to the woodland structures, and an inviting microclimate. The trees are perfect for reaching out, from horseback, to pick a ripe, heirloom apple but also as a test case to show how trees can contribute to producing food within a wider land use system. To further add to the equestrian experience we’ve employed an ancient method called laying to tame the grown-out hedges to an acceptable jumping height. The laying process also makes the hedge denser, providing better cover for wildlife that use them as corridors to move between areas of woodland. The hedge features intermittent standing trees to further expand the diversity of habitat available to wildlife.
The Future
As well as our further woodland expansion, maintenance and field regeneration, the future will see the expansion of the current ephemeral lake to a series of pools and a deeper wild swimming pond creating a wetland for wild fowl and a yet more diverse range of plants and creatures.
The transformation of this land in the two short years we’ve been here has been phenomenal and we think there’s plenty more to be done. Watch this space!