A Perfect Place of a Picnic?

Roundball Wood volunteer wardens took a break from their labour last Saturday to have a picnic in one of the few dry places in the wood.  We have been had to cancel several work days because of the weather, so a short dry spell and a glimpse of sunshine was welcome. We decided to wait until the ground is dryer before we continued our work on the footpaths and instead concentrated on coppicing hazel near the Woodhill View entrance to the woods.

At Roundball we have a 10 year rotation of coppicing, or cutting down hazel to encourage new growth. There is plenty of evidence that this has happened in the woods for generations, and it is a common countryside practice to cut hazel to provide wood for fencing, bean poles and many other purposes. Our reasons for coppicing hazel in this area is three fold. Firstly, to allow more light in an area which has bluebells and primroses. Secondly, to provide timber for improving the pathways and thirdly to create a hedge alongside one of the main pathways in the woods.

You will notice that we have layered some of the main hazel stems by partly cutting through the base, bending them over and layering them. We have then used the brash or small branches and twigs to fill in the the gaps. We are hoping that this combination of live and dead hedging will be start of a path side hedge and are expecting to see plenty of evidence of new shoots in a couple of months time.

Along with holly, hazel forms the main understory, or lower level of trees in the wood. It does not generally fruit, or produce hazel nuts until the seventh year after coppicing and it is for that reason that we coppice no more that 10% of the hazel annually. Hazel produces an important food source for wildlife in the woods and we need to do what we can to maintain its productivity. 

As well as our resident squirrels and wood-mice, hazel is also a favourite food for dormice. Our aim is that Roundball Wood should become a perfect picnic place for dormice as well as wardens, but more about that in a future blog.