SHORT CUTS SUCCESS TO

It’s time to get your saw out – coppicing isn’t just a great source of wood, it’s also a godsend for birds and plants, says Monty Don

The concept of a coppice was practically in my DNA as I was growing up. That is because I was raised in Hampshire in the middle of the biggest hazel coppice area of the country. Later I learnt how precious it was, how much of it has been lost and how lovely is the full range of plants that rely upon coppice management.

Coppicing means the regular cutting back of all shoots and top growth right down to a stump or ‘stool’. This is always done in the winter months and so, as with all winter pruning, results in an extra-vigorous flush of regrowth.

Although almost all deciduous trees can be coppiced, certain species respond to this better than others. Hazel, willow and sweet chestnut are the most common today and historically oak, hornbeam, ash and lime were also coppiced extensively. Our most common native evergreens – yew, box and holly – can be coppiced but almost never are, save to regenerate a very overgrown specimen or hedge. Almost all other evergreens will not regrow from this kind of drastic treatment.

The reason for coppicing was to provide straight lengths of wood that, before plastic and imports like bamboo were widely available, were used in hundreds of ways but primarily as tool handles, fence posts, bean and pea sticks, fencing material, hop poles, thatching spars, broom heads and charcoal. Tens of thousands of acres of woodland were managed in this way continuously for centuries because a tree that is regularly cut to the ground will actually live much longer than one that is allowed to grow unchecked. The frequency of coppicing varies from species to species but, roughly speaking, willow is cut every 2-3 years, hazel every 8-12 years, chestnut every 15 years, ash every 15-20 and oak only once every 30 years.

Twenty-five years ago I planted a coppice here in my garden from about 70 hazel seedlings that had self sown and which I gradually dug up and put to one side. I say self sown but in fact each one had been buried, and forgotten, by squirrels. I’m now just beginning my third coppice cycle to provide a harvest of bean and pea sticks that I’ll use in the garden for the next three or four years and then, as they rot, will become kindling for the fire. Nothing is wasted.

But the coppice does not exist just for the harvest of bean sticks. I created it for two reasons. On one hand the growing hazels sprouting multiple shoots from the stool are beautiful and make a perfect habitat for many birds. They also create an ideal environment for a range of woodland plants that have evolved to respond to this process of growth and clearing. As the hazels grow, the amount of light gradually decreases for the plants growing around them (though the environment for birds and insects and small mammals steadily improves). Then when you coppice, light pours in and for the next few years plants like primroses, bluebells, violets, wood anemones and euphorbias burst into exuberant life, gradually sinking back as it gets darker before the cycle is repeated.

You can apply this principle anywhere in a border with hazel, or willow or dogwood for a quicker turnaround. It is important to remove all growth down to a bottom bud or two. Let the shrubs grow uncut for three years and then take them right back to the ground. The flowers planted around their base will love the extra light, growing and flowering with extra vigour before easing off a little on the third year – and so the process continues.

Monty in his hazel coppice