2022 A Summary.

 2022 A Summary.

The winter planting season 21/22 had mixed results. The first trees planted were Eucalyptus rodwayi and London Plane put into small areas of dying Ash and Downey Birch with odd other stunted trees. The areas were by the streamside at Cairn Wood. The London Plane were F2 hybrids from seed collected at Nottingham Arboretum. They were a complete failure. The brash piles failed to keep the deer out and the Eucs were heavily browsed and the Planes in their guards failed with the hot dry weather.

The main planting had been in the rectangular field where Oak, Douglas Fir and some Eucs were planted where the Poplars and Alders had been pollarded.  The trees were planted close to the pollards. Some of the Eucs were very poor specimens that had been neglected in the my nursery and had not been watered or got waterlogged once it rained. They quickly failed but the Cheviot Tree's Pedunculate Oak and Douglas were good specimens. They did get watered occasionally  through the dry spring and drought Summer. A very time consuming task. It was at least possible to get the car round the field so taking water down was possible. The dry ground did not absorb the water so each tree got a splash and then I had to wait while it soaked in before getting another splash and then a third. For the trees planted 22/23 I have planted the plastic pots for those that were in them next to the trees to make watering easier this summer. Survival has been good. 

The 21/22 plantings. The pollarded Poplars coppiced rather too well and and have been felled. They will need spraying as they regrow and will produce suckers which will need spraying. 

The winter 21/22 season and early spring also saw the pollarding of the largest Eucs (P11) in the triangular field and their splitting and stacking for burning the following winter. The larger E. glaucescens in the mixed compartment were also pollarded in the spring. These are our current fuel logs. Most of the E. glaucescens were pollarded later in the year and are drying for winter 23/4.  All the Pollards had good shoots but some have failed in the drought.

The Autumn saw the remaining Alder and poplars in the Rectangular Wood pollarded and the poplar stumps felled. Part of the area was planted with Taiwania cryptomeroides, (from Taiwan resembling cryptomeria). I grew them from seed and are two years old but were neglected in the nursery, so were not consistent good specimens. they are at approximately 3m x 3m.  They are within a a planting of E. viminalis from my own seed which fill up the area at about 1.5m spacing. 

Pollarded E.viminalis in the triangular wood. On the left are three Sweet chestnuts two of which have been side puned to hopefully make timber trees.

Any talk of 2022 will be dominated by the scorching heat and drought.  The 2021/22  plantings at Pit wood were given some water during the worst of the drought. The 20/21 plantings in the tulip wood were also given some water but most of beat up at the northern end of the wood were lost. The effects on the main  woods are covered in previous posts 2022 Drought  and Drought Recovery Autumn.

I have pollarded some E. viminalis that were sown in Nov 2015, this winter with a DBH of 10" for burning winter 23/4, so were large trees Max height 40ft and why I was keen to plant more. The cold snap for a week in December -8 after a warm period has caused a lot of their lower leaves to die. I will have to wait to see if they have survived. Those that had their crowns above the surrounding canopy look O.K but coppice regrowth and new plantings look badly affected.

There a lot of them planted in the autumn. I knew they were more frost tender than the other species I have planted but had survived in the wood since 2016. E. dalrympeana which were in cells in the garden also look to have died. They will have been in pots of frozen compost for a week, so not that surprising. Those in the open "greenhouse" have survived.  The picture shows a E. dalrympeana planted winter 21/22 and frosted it looks better than those in the garden that were outside. 

I have some E. dalrympleana to replace any E. viminalis the frost has got and will need to wait to see the effect of the drought and frost before saying if 2022 was a good or poor year.

Elm Species

 Elm Species.

I started writing a post about Dutch Elm Disease (DED) and realised a page on European Elm species was probably needed. I will post a DED blog when I have summer photos from Cairn wood.

There are three native European Elm species. All are potentially large trees associated with moist environments. They have a wide overlapping geographical distribution being found in most European countries. They have leaves that are offset  at the base where they meet their petiole, and round papery seed capsules with a central seed. A seed with a "wing" is a samara. 

1). Ulmus laevis. The European White Elm the tree with the greatest affinity with riparian (river) ecosystems. The most resistant to waterlogging and not usually found at elevated sites. Not native to the U.K. it is found increasingly from Spain to the Urals.

2) Ulmus glabra. Wych Elm or Scottish Elm has the most Northerly distribution. A more montane species it is native in Britain and Scandinavia and also spreads from Spain to the Urals. The leaves are much larger than in Ulmus minor the other elm found wild in England.

3) Ulmus minor. The field Elm again the native range extends from Spain to the Urals. The Elm that freely suckers and with small leaves. The most common Elm in England where it is known as the English Elm and was formerly known as Ulmus  procera, and the reason for this blog No longer regarded as a separate species all the "English" Elms have been shown to be clones of a very small number of  original introductions.  

English Elm                                    Wych Elm                                        White Elm

The English Elm was probably introduced from Italy and Spain by the romans. The parental stock sucker profusely but is sterile. It has been the preferred wood pole for supporting vines. This will have been why it was introduced.

Elm has a checkered history in Britain and Europe. Pollen records from Britain and North Western Europe show it was a common often dominant forest tree as forests developed after the last Ice Age. There is a sudden marked decrease in  Elm pollen from 6300 years ago. In the mid Holocene geological period. It is believed to have lasted around 150 years and was broadly synchronous across the whole area. The precise reasons are not known but it coincides with several factors.

The decline is at the same time as the change from the Mesolithic to Neolithic ages. The time when humans started domesticating animals growing crops producing pottery and living more in settlements. It is temping to think of Humans cutting forest trees down for fuel and agriculture. This is not likely in my opinion. Elm has a very hard stable wood that is difficult to work and extremely hard to split, which is why it was used for the hubs of cart wheels. Armed with a stone Axe an Elm would be the last tree you would try to fell. There is also a fall in Lime pollen. Lime is a much easier wood to work and its bark provided fibres for stone age cultures. Reductions in other forest tree pollen is only temporary. Using branches of any tree as fodder for live stock could partially explain pollen loss and account for weakened trees being more susceptible to pests.

The very rapid decline suggests a pathogenic cause for the decline. The beetle associated with Dutch Elm Disease (DED) is more common in some areas after the decline. The movement of human populations at the time mean that DED could have been introduced or at least spread by humans. 

There were slow climatic changes at the same time. Alder pollen stops increasing and Pine disappears suggestive of a dryer climate.  There are no dramatic climatic changes and agriculture spread slowly as populations steadily increased.