Planting Sweet Chestnut Trees with Jim and Zero (the dog!)

 Digging out the bracken (bad for the tree roots) and planting bargain (£1 each) chestnut trees from Beechwood Nurseries in N. Ireland

On Trees and Bureaucracy

I am learning more about the  bureaucracy of woods.  Our wood was listed by the county council.  This made ma a little nervous as I am planning to manage the wood (coppicing etc) and didn't want to have to wait and fill lots of forms every time I picked up the saw!  However, a little research shows that the County Council are giving up their tree preservation orders this year so our wood will be delisted.  Good for us but i am not sure about the effects on other trees threatened by developers!!   So I am also meeting someone from the Forestry Commission next month to discus felling licences and management plans,(so I am not quite out of the wood yet - so to speak!!).  I hope this is going to go smoothly and we can get on with our plans to coppice some hazel and over-stood (old coppice) sweet chestnut.  Some of the trees are quite old now and need rejuvenating (don't we all!)  I will keep you posted.   On another note we are waiting with baited breath for the daffodils to bloom, they are so close now.  Maybe this weekend?