The heavy rains this weekend really have scuppered my plans for work next week. I'm going over to Immingham for a three day course on Woodland management on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and I was hoping to get out and do a bit of paid work at a garden in Scartho either today or tomorrow, to make up for my midweek absence from work.
Jacquie and I joined a local community group called 'The Friends of Mayflower Wood' earlier on this year, after attending a meeting of like-minded individuals at Conoco Phillips offices at Killingholme, in North East Lincolnshire. Mayflower Wood, I read last week, is the largest privately owned community woodland in England and if you ever get a spare moment, take my advice and have a walk around this massive burgeoning woodland site. There are over 70,000 trees planted here and they're all between waist to shoulder height but it'll only be a matter of a few years more and they'll be towering majestically above our heads.
We joined this friendly little group after I helped out at a couple of their intriguingly named 'Tree Spiral Removal' days last Autumn. A couple of years ago, when these young trees were first planted as 'whips' and 'heels', they were extremely vulnerable to the danger of being eaten alive during their first winter. Rabbits and deer, which live in abundance in and around these woods, always suffer from a lack of food when winter comes around and as their preferred diet of assorted fresh green leaves comes off the seasonal menu, they have to find an alternative food source in the form of the tender bark which grows on the newly planted young tree saplings. They never eat right through the trunk of the saplings and they only choose the youngest and sweetest of trees to nibble on, but once they've had a chew, the damage is done. The inner bark is very important as it's where the sap travels on its journey around the tree. Once the tree gets a little bit older and the bark gets a little more gnarled and woody, it becomes less attractive as a snack time treat.
"Excuse me!" shouted a chap out walking his dogs. "My curiosity really has got the better of me. What are you all doing?".
I stopped for a moment, straightened my back and with my hand shielding my eyes from the low lying autumn sun, I saw the stranger approaching. "Good morning", I replied. If you want to come over here I'll show you, it'd be easier than trying to explain". Before I'd even finished my sentence his two black slobbering labradors were upon me, licking, panting and bounding, with tails wagging so hard that I swear they could've been used to harvest some form of free eco energy to power the nation.
Before this visitor had arrived upon my peaceful scene, I'd been busying away, surrounded by people, yet obliviously adrift in a world of my own, removing tree spirals. "These flexible plastic shields were placed around these trees when they were first planted, to protect them from rabbits and deer. But, they've got to the stage now when the trees are big enough to look after themselves. In fact, if you look down here, you'll see that the base of this tree, where it's been surrounded by one of these tree spirals, is covered in mould caused by the build up of loads of damp leaf litter and dead insects all of which have collected inside the plastic ring.That damp rubbish has caused the mould which could, in turn, allow infections to grow and the tree to rot. That one over there", I said pointing to another young tree about 10 feet away. "That poplar has grown so quickly that it's completely outgrown its protective spiral and it's now starting to impede its growth, and stilt its progress."
"Don't I know you from somewhere?" asked my inquisitive visitor. "I'm not sure" I replied. "I do get out and about and meet a lot of people in my role as Chairman of Grimsby in Bloom, maybe we've met doing something like that?"
"Ernie Brown!" he exclaimed "You're Ernie Brown. You write that column in the Grimsby Post every week. I do enjoy reading that, it's really nice to meet you." he said, shaking me firmly by the hand before stooping and roughly patting his dogs , which were by now champing at the bit with an excited enthusiasm keen to be getting off on the journey through the woods.
"I come here every morning with these girls", he shouted back to me when he was about 20 yards away. "They need a good walk at least once every day to keep them out of mischief. Would it help if I stopped every now and then and took a few of these spiral thingies off for you?.
"Yes, thanks, just leave all of the tree spirals in a pile near the the path edge and someone will collect them. With 70,000 trees, we need all the help we can get. Thank you! Bye." I shouted to my visitor as he strode off down the hill towards his 'girls' and they bounded, full of life up the other side, doubling the distance between them and him with every pace.
Because I've helped out on a few of these voluntary events and because we joined the 'Friends' group we were offered the opportunity to go on next weeks Woodland Management course at no cost to myself and as I keep saying, a bit of free knowledge should never be turned down.
As a maintenance gardener, I'm not a complete stranger to the practice of woodland management. For the last couple of years, one of my regular customers has been Healing Manor on Stallingborough Road near Great Grimsby.
Most gardeners really struggle to find enough work to keep them in full employment through the long, barren winter months when the drastic drop in temperatures means a drastic drop in the growth rates, no more grass to cut, no more hedges to trim and no more weeds to pluck from their secret undergrowth hiding places.
Last November, the unusually early snow fell thick and fast and lay heavy upon the ground for weeks on end, not leaving the lawns of Northern Lincolnshire until the middle of January. For the first two weeks I couldn't even get the car out of the courtyard in Caistor until finally, after a mammoth community 'dig out' we all broke free from our snowy shackles. Fortunately, once out of the courtyard the roads were reasonably clear and I was able to continue my work in the 20 acres of neglected and ancient woodlands at Healing Manor, where I managed, even when the snow was knee deep, to find plenty to do to keep myself busy.
The woodlands at Healing Manor haven't been properly looked after in many, many years and in this, my third winter at the Manor, I've been able to continue my own quiet woodland management scheme. During my first winter I re-opened nearly all of the major pathways around the ancient woodlands surrounding this medieval moated manor estate. During my second winter I started to clear the brambles and elder shrubs which were beginning to take over in a couple of the larger clearings. This, in turn, let a lot more sunlight shine down onto the ground level and during last spring I was rewarded with a fantastic display of spring flowering plants from snowdrops to bluebells and every narcissus in between. This winter, I spent my time in the woods coppicing the many years of growth that has been accumulating around the bases of scores of Lime trees around the estate and curtailing the phenomenal growth of ivy on just about every tree, again to let in more light, so that hopefully, we'll get even more spring flowers this coming season.
The ivy was really out of control. Even in the depths of winter, when the leafy canopy of these major trees had all been thrown to the ground, the all invasive ivy continued to shade the woodland floor. Its branches reached high into the loftiest branches of tallest ash trees, over 250 ft into the air. They needed curtailing before they begin to pull the trees down with their weight. During the winter, when we have the strongest, harshest winds, the trees are bereft of their summer complement of leaves, helping them to ride out the worst of the storms. With a full dressing of ivy foliage to act as a sail, the winds are able to catch and pull the weakest, uppermost branches causing lots of damage to the trees. So, out came my bow saw, my loppers and my secateurs and with the snow lying above the tops of my wellies I began my journey around the hundreds of trees on the Healing Manor estate.
It was a lovely time, when the snow lay thick on the ground, to be out in the woods working. The peace, the silence, the solitude, it really was a beautiful place to work. There were the occasional dog walkers and the odd poacher or two and one lady who jogged around the pathways every morning. We all greeted each other with a smile and a wave but nothing was said, we were all happy in our own individual little worlds. My sister and her husband came along as well one morning, a couple of weeks before Christmas. They'd come, with permission of the owner of course, to collect some greenery to decorate the chalet where they live on Humberston Fitties, ready for Christmas. I showed them where all of the best and easiest to harvest holly, ivy, yew and laurel plants were and gave them my secateurs, while I got on with my work behind the 'rose walk', on the edge of the medieval moat.
When they'd finished, they came back across to where I was working. As I watched them trudging knee deep through the snow with arms full of black bins bags bulging with green plant matter they looked to all the world like the ancient 'Stickers', granted permission from the landowner to collect fallen firewood for their winters hearth.
A police helicopter suddenly swooped down low above us and hovered just above our heads for what felt like minutes but was probably only a few seconds. As I said earlier, I've worked at Healing Manor for just over two and a half years now and I'm quite used to it being on the police helicopter flight path between Kirmington and Great Grimsby. It passes over twice, sometimes three times a day, you tend to get used to it. But this time, for the first time ever, it stopped, came much, much lower, waited and watched us, before flying off in ever increasing circles into the distance and was gone, out of sight beyond the treetops. "That was odd", I said to my sister as she and her husband stood next to me, each of them clutching a brace of black bin liners filled to the brim with fresh, green holly boughs and ivy trails. "They must've wondered what on earth we were up to on such a cold day".
And now, at last, the rain has stopped and I can get a bit more work done in the garden. Don't forget to tune in next week when I'll be brewing some very tasty beer indeed.
