It did help. I'm just glad that my woods are my own. Also, re-wilding is a bad idea. The trees and paths become dangerously overgrown and have one strong wind, and you have a disaster zone. Not to mention the fires in the summers. No, in my view, we NEED to maintain what we started and manage what we have. To add. I've inherited a poorly managed (i.e., not for 100 years) woods, and it's so dangerous to maintain that I'm clear-cutting most of it over the next 5 or so years. Some I'm finding too dangerous for me, an average home user, so I need to bring in the big guns. Not ideal. I'll get it to a state where I can continue, along with my kids that will inherit it one day. Cheers.

@@Nellyontheland excellent, keep at it. I’m sure some will disagree but maybe that’s what makes caring for woodland so diverse. We do what we do with the best knowledge we have at the time

@Abell To Think on this...Our parks and recreation places, the trees up the streets creating avenues of lush organised foliage. The new developments that are installing trees and plants to make it SEEM natural! This is what WE ALL want. Organised walkways, occasional wonky trees to climb, avenues of grass and leaf. ...we never want a rickety forest, a wicked witch, or three bears that takes the occasional rambler by surprise. 🤔

Glad it’s helped. All the best for next winter

Thanks so much for watching, I’m glad it helps. It’s a tough decision sometimes and we don’t always get it right. All the best with marking and thinning Regards Darren

We’re the same, the bird life has significantly increased in the last 5 years at ours too

Ayup Matt that’s a great point. I wonder what animal I can pretend to be!

That’s really interesting you notice that, letting light to a woodland floor even if only in certain areas makes a big difference to the diversity of a woodland.

It’s an option so we’ll see how it develops, the basic plan is Hazel coppice with Oak standards and I have a video coming out that explains that in more detail

Hi Paul, too short, wow that does surprise me. Just to clarify I don’t thin or fat hazel, all hazel I cut is for coppice so a fairly large area gets cut. Thinning of Fatting tends to be for the tall crop trees, ash, beech, oak, sycamore etc. It all depends on the management requirements, the woodland I was marking up is quite poor form really and it’ll be many years before a true to Timber crop can be harvested. Cutting a larger wonky oak out now give a firewood return straight away whereas cutting a wonky little oak gives little returns and just leaves a wonky big tree in. Also I need to give the hazel lots and lots of light so a tree with a big canopy when felled opens things up and means less actual trees cut down. Hope my waffle makes sense Regards Darren

Ayup eckythump, what a great name. Yes the oaks do regrow, the muntjac love them. Usually the oaks need all the light so if in shade they often die off from what I’ve seen. I try to encourage and preserve what seems determined to grow. Oak coppice is a different system in its own right. Often with a 30 year rotation of cuts

@@AbellTo there is a protected area of ancient coppiced oak up in the dale. Like most protected sites it is being left to collapse. They just seem to want to plant new trees rather than keep the coppice going.

@@eckythump6429 makes you what what exactly is being protected