“Mom, what’s the big basket for?”

If you’ve visited Fox Hill since our last conservation party, you’ll have seen some beautiful woodland sculptures dotted around. While they may be works of art, they actually serve a purpose…

After receiving permission from WBC, we started the coppicing described in this post, and the “basket weaving” forms a ring fence that we hope will keep deer away from the new shoots. The fresh shoots will look very tasty to them otherwise.

Thanks to some advice from our own experts and our friends from Holt Copse, we made a good start on the project.

The bottom left photo shows how we have used Layering to start off new Hazel plants. The branches will take root at the point they make contact with the ground.