The day before yesterday I spent half a day doing a free taster course on coppicing at the Brinsbury campus of Chichester College, between Billingshurst and Pulborough, West Sussex. I have now been actively coppicing and pollarding for the last six weekends, interspersed with pruning (ie cutting up to six-inch thick branches off) apple trees.
The course reassured that what I was doing was broadly right and gave me some extra guidance on various points. I was particularly interested in how to protect the "stools" (what is left after coppicing) from deer. At Brinsbury they build little "wigwams" of brushwood over the stool. The wigwam erected by a fellow student and myself is probably more elaborate than is necessary but it was fun to build and reminded me of my one-time life as an architect.
No comments:
Post a Comment