Funky trees from today’s coppicing work.
Anyone care to guess how old that ash stool is in the first image? (top left) the clue is in the width of the base, not the upright.
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Trunk and Coppice - Carry Akroyd
British , b. 1953 -
Pastel , 18 x 22 cm.
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Christmas Circle Park, Borrego Springs, California, 2023.
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art with my character! :3
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Pollard And Coppice During Winter
Proper pollarding and coppicing are rare.
This is extreme dormant pruning. Pollard and coppice pruning involve complete removal of all new growth. They typically involve growth from a previous season annually. A two year cycle involves growth from two previous seasons, and so on. This repetitive pruning to the same origins stimulates distended callus growth there. It is as brutal as it…
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just a personal reference. We've been getting very excited about coppicing and pollarding lately.
struggling however to find info on how various aotearoa natives are with coppicing, but hey, we're not in a rush given we own exactly zero land.
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Andy Goldsworthy: Stone Coppice (2009)
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Spar making update: I’m getting better but the points still need work. Between two of us, we’ve got to make 4000 of them for a thatched roof though, so I’d better get on with it!!
The process involves taking one of the 28” hazel rods in the background of the photo (called ‘gads’) and, using a billhook or a splitting hook (the bigger and blunter of the two blades at the bottom of the photo), and splitting them first in half, and then into either quarters, sixths, or eighths, depending on the thickness of the rod to start with. Then with a pointing hook (smaller of the two blades) you put a three-faced point on each end. They’re kept from drying out and stored for a short while, and a thatcher then twists them into a pincer or staple shape to skewer and secure the thatch of a roof into place.
Spar making is on the Red List of Endangered Crafts so it’s an honour to be continuing this ancient ancient tradition with a few other people.
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i believe a while back you mentioned that certain trees benefit from being cut but i cannot find the post? could you elaborate on that bc im Fascinated (curious eyes emoji)
That's coppicing! Funny you mention it actually, the next biome research post I'm gonna make (in the style of the moorland one) is British forests. It's not only good for an individual tree, coppiced woodland is like moorland in that it's an anthropogenic area that becomes extremely important for several animals. Butterflies, bluebells, nightjars...
But I'm getting ahead of myself. To coppice a tree, you cut it down to its stem, and then allow it to sprout back for a number of years. The length of time depends on the species and purpose you want the wood for. You can make perfect, straight poles for tools, beams for construction, bundles for firewood...
A coppiced tree does not die of old age. They can live forever, and produce wood for GENERATIONS. No need to clean-cut and devastate a woodland!
What's good about coppiced woodland is that it leaves the canopy clear. Clear canopy = sexy, sexy understorey. Lots of sunlight comes through which allows the growth of low-laying plants and berry bushes, lots of places for animals to eat and hide.
Downside tho is that if you don't come back and manage your beautifully coppiced grove, you will end up with a thick canopy of trees all the same age, blocking out the sun. That's bad. You're gonna see a recurring theme in all of this research that a TON of biomes in the UK REQUIRE human management and have really been suffering without proper stewardship.
Basically, coppicing without ongoing human management just results in a plantation (derogatory) with extra steps.
Lake cats did a lot more coppicing than modern Clan cats. Modern Clan cats don't really have the tools to cut hard trees like beech and hornbeam; they can only manage softer, thinner ones like birch and alder with their claws and stone tools. It's a lost art.
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