Flanders Moss NNR
Every now and again our car park needs a little makeover to keep it in ship shape fashion. Now that the car park wildflower meadow has been mown and raked (reported in a recent blog) our volunteers moved on to help us coppice a few of the willow trees and hazel bushes that surround the car park, to open it up a little more.
The hazels were first planted about twelve years ago by Steve, the first job that Steve undertook for the then new Reserve Manager, Dave Pickett. Twelve years later, this was the last job given to Steve by Dave – full circle!
Coppicing is the practice of cutting plant stems close to the ground, which will then allow the plant to regrow side shoots over time. However, these new shoots can be very tender and tempting to herbivores, mainly deer. So with this in mind our volunteers got crafty and created hazel/birch/willow cages over the coppiced hazel stumps to protect them from nibbling deer.
First, about eight long straight stems of cut hazel / birch (sharpened at one end for sticking in the ground) were arranged in a circle around the hazel stump. The stem ends are then gathered and wound together at the top with thin pieces of willow. Willow was then used to continue weaving in and out of the uprights to give the structures substance and to help keep deer noses out!
Willow is great to use for this part of the dome as with a bit of pre-bending they become lovely and pliable for weaving. However, don’t use the willow as uprights as they can root easily and you’ll have willow saplings around your coppiced stump!
We left a few hazel stumps aside without deer guards to act as controls so we can compare them with the protected stumps and see if the guards work. So it’s now a case of watch this stump….
2 bogs, a swamp and some islands 
This is interesting to observe.
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