Within a Site of Metropolitan Importance for Nature Conservation, Local Nature Reserve, Metropolitan Green Belt. We have also undertaken river improvements along Yeading Brook, reducing shading from overhanging vegetation and creating a more natural river flow with brash berms, helping the river sustain more invertebrate and fish species. Work centres on expanding the area of neutral wet grassland, clearing encroaching thorny scrub and reintroducing conservation grazing. There is nothing more daunting than walking into an acre of densely stocked 8-year old hazel and trying to decide if it is good enough for you to make a living. A dedicated volunteer group have worked tirelessly to conserve this area for 30 years and persuaded landowner Hillingdon Council to designate Gutteridge Wood as part of Yeading Woods Local Nature Reserve in 1990, which also includes adjacent Ten Acre Wood. The following notes are meant as a beginners guide to gauging the potential commercial worth of coppice offered in standing sales. The woodland is ancient and has been standing here for many hundreds of years it was once called Great Ditch Wood. Wildflowers and grasses dominate the meadows, hosting an array of insect life.Ī visit to Gutteridge Wood can form part of a day out to three adjacent nature reserves - Ten Acre Wood joins immediately to the south and Yeading Brook Meadows is another short walk beyond it. Oak and hazel coppice woodland bursts to life each spring with a blanket of bluebells. This part of the Yeading Brook Valley is a haven for birds. Once pollinated, by pollen carried on the wind from another hazel tree, the female flowers develop into the oval fruits or hazel nuts.Gutteridge Wood in Hillingdon sits in an area of traditional countryside character, where ancient woodland and wildflower meadows meet. Contrary to what you may expect, coppicing the hazel can extend the life of the plant considerably with some well managed coppices being centuries old. Don’t forget to look out for the easily overlooked female flowers too – these are tiny and budlike with red tips known as styles. Hazel coppice has been practiced extensively in the past and still provides an excellent source of valuable wood especially if you are adding value with wood crafting. Dormice also eat the caterpillars which feed on the spring leaves.Īt this time of year Hazel trees are easy to recognise with their male yellow flowers hanging down in distinctive catkins. The hazel was planted at two metre spacing and that’s what we try to maintain. Their leaves provide food for many caterpillars and moths including the large emerald and the small white wave and their nuts of course, provide food for dormice, squirrels, woodpeckers, nuthatches, jays, tits and wood pigeons. Hazel trees are great for wildlife in other ways too. Coppice was the traditional form of silviculture practised in many woodlands in lowland Britain, and the estimated areas of simple coppice, and coppice with standards, has been declining for. This is supports many butterfly species, particularly fritillaries and the coppice also provides shelter for ground-nesting birds, such as nightingales and willow warblers. ![]() Nowadays, the South of England Hedge Laying Society use the stems as uprights to weave branches between when they’re out laying hedges.Ī well-managed coppice opens the woodland floor up to more light, allowing spring flowers such as bluebells, wood anemones, dog violets and celandine to bloom. In times gone by, cut hazel stems would have been used for making hurdles to keep in sheep, thatching spars, net stakes and water divining rods. In a typical hazel coppice cycle, cutting is done every 7 to 15 years to prolong the lifespan of the trees. If a Hazel is left to grow naturally as a single-stemmed tree it can live for 80 years but with careful coppicing a multi-stemmed stool can live for centuries. It can look quite drastic as trees are cut right down to the ground in the winter leaving a ‘stool’ but in the spring the stool regrows a thicket of stems, which will be ready to harvest after a few years. If you're walking in Blunts Wood nature reserve this month you may come across local volunteers who are busy coppicing hazel trees in the area.Ĭoppicing is a sustainable and traditional woodland management technique.
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