Tag: sustainability

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The sustainable park (2)

 

An ash tree showing symptoms of ash dieback disease
An ash tree showing symptoms of ash dieback disease. [Photograph: M. J. Richardson, https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5465604]
We did not want those trees in Nowhere Wood to be felled, but we accepted that the trees were infected with Ash die-back disease and had to go. 

Growing and managing trees is something that people of done for tens of thousands of years. One secret is to use every part of the tree mindfully, to benefit the community.

And so it was that fifteen volunteers from the Friends of Trendlewood group came together to drag the fallen branches (“brash”) to the edge of the pond.

Dragging Ash branches to the pond
Dragging Ash branches to the pond. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]
We worked alongside the council parks team, who piled wooden stakes in the ground across the edge of the pond. We then weaved layers of  branches between the stakes to create a “dead hedge”, separating the pond from the children’s playground. 

Laying a dead hedge, using ash branches
Laying a dead hedge, using ash branches. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]
The pond is fed by streams and disappeared for many decades, only to return as a permanent feature in the last few years. Watercress plants grow in the water, as they would have done in the 1800’s, when people used to collect them to eat.

Water cress plants
Water cress is a salad crop. [Photograph: Laura Whitehead, https://www.flickr.com/photos/thewhiteheads/8693844036]
It took a morning to build the dead hedge, which will help to protect children and dogs from getting wet in the pond. It is a good use of waste wood  that would otherwise be burned. Burning wood releases stored carbon into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

The completed dead hedge.
The completed dead hedge. [Photograph: Simon Stannard]
It is another example of how the park is managed in sustainable ways.

Sustainability is an important idea. The United Nations has a sustainable development goal for life on land, (number 15). Find out what it says and why it is important.

 

Notes on the story

What can eat a tree like this?

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The sustainable park (1)

The old willow tree in Trendlewood park
The old willow tree in Trendlewood park. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]
This willow tree in the park is very old. Maybe a hundred years or so. Look how its bark is gnarled and twisted. It is a great friend of the park and is home to many different insects and birds. One year, a female mallard duck even made a nest on the flat top of the tree!

The willow keeps on growing because every few years, it’s friends cut off all of its branches!

This really does encourage the tree to grow strongly. 

We call the removal of the branches ‘pollarding’.

This ancient willow tree has recently been pruned
Pollarding trees is a way of keeping them alive. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]
This week, it was the old willow’s turn to be pollarded. You can see the cut stumps where the branches used to be.

Woods have always been important to people. In the 17th century, new forests were planted to provide enough timber for the boats for the Royal Navy.

People have pollarded woodland trees for thousands of years.  It was their main source of wood for building, making furniture, for charcoal and for fuel to heat their homes.

 

Wood is a very useful sustainable resource, when managed in this way. It is sustainable because the tree carries on growing and making new wood.

Pollarded willow wood is special. It is used to make cricket bats and weave baskets.  For generations, this provided income for poor families  in Somerset.

It is also a good way of making new fences. This is because cut branches of willow will grow new roots when they are placed in water.

The cut stems will grow into new trees and can become a hedge when they are planted closely together.

Two volunteers from the Friends of Trendlewood Park soaking the branches of willow
Two volunteers from the Friends of Trendlewood Park soaking the branches of willow. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]
The photograph shows two volunteers from the Friends of Trendlewood Park preparing willow branches to build into a new hedge in the area near the playing fields.

They place the cut ends of the branches into water.

A newly planted willow hedge in Tendlewood Park
A newly planted willow hedge in Tendlewood Park. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]
In a few months’ time, when the weather is warmer, this hedge should be growing strongly and could grow for many years.

  1. This species of willow is called the brittle willow, because branches break off easily. Suggest why it is an advantage to the willow for these branches to be able to grow into new trees.
  2. This species of willow has two ways of reproducing. It flowers and makes seed and also can propagate through fallen branches. Find out why it is useful for the species to be able to reproduce in these two ways.

After the story:

Just after I finished writing this story, it was announced that young trees grown from seeds of the Sycamore Gap tree are to be given to charities, groups and individuals as “trees of hope“. This ancient sycamore tree, from Northumberland, was cut down in September 2023.

new growth from there Sycamore gap tree
Image from https://www.thesill.org.uk/sycamore-gap-tree-is-sprouting/

This is a lovely, kind idea. The tree lives on, not only through its seeds, but  also in the new stems that are growing from its cut stem. This shows the power of nature to recover and re-grow. Life is resilient, it does not give up.

 

 

Notes on the story

Apples and the New Year