On a just-finished hundred-mile winter walk through West and South Yorkshire, I have felt somewhat tree-deprived – partly because my route lay through open farmland, fen edges and upland pastures; partly because, after the astonishing rain of the autumn, woodland trails are often impassable and, therefore, to be avoided. But on a very cold December day, tracking south between Conisbrough and Tickhill in South Yorkshire, I came through Wadworth woods and found the ground, even under an insulating canopy of bare but mature oaks, solidly frozen. And here, negotiating stiffly rutted rides, I came across a small masterpiece that stopped me in my tracks.
This artless composition of colour, texture and form was lit by a low sun – almost the lowest of the year – sneaking along the ride, picking out sparkling frosted gems. A painter might have called this ‘Still life, winter polypore (I’m no fungus expert), oak leaf, bramble and woodrush.’ If nothing else, it’s a lesson in observation: the artist, like the woodsman, sees beyond woodland and tree to horizons far and near. Even so, the camera image does little justice to the experience: of superb cold and the stillness of the woodland air; its hollow acoustics; the dramatic peachy light and the sense of a season not of death and decay, but of deep-breath pause, reflection and recuperation: nature drawing back, ready to take a running jump in Spring.
This month is also a time for tree planting, for coppicing and pruning; repairing fences and hedges and contemplating the woodland year ahead; for burning last year’s wood on a stove and restocking the woodshed. This, truly, is the woodsman’s season. And, sometimes, the woodsman needs to stop, look and listen.
Did they cut down all the other trees before replanting new ones?
In the last two centuries it has been common practice to clear-fell large areas of trees planted as a crop – mostly conifers, but also oaks and beeches. Coppiced woods are kept in a continuous cycle in which trees grow new stems from sometimes ancient stumps. Planting happens when you establish new woods, as we are doing at Woods for the Trees; or to replace areas where diseased trees have died, such as in the ash dieback woods. In a hazel coppice, new trees can be established by layering – bending a long, pliable shoot over and pegging it to the ground, stimulating new roots to form.
In medieval woodland practice large single ‘standard’ trees were felled for their timber, in amongst the coppice stools; they might be replaced by planting; often, though, other young trees would be grown on to replace them from existing stock. Generally, planted trees are not so successful as self-seeded trees.