On Thursday the mid week group braved the elements to find the best Hazel in all the land. The weather conditions were not the best (it was rather wet and windy) but we had two brave souls out with myself and another volunteer leader eager to start the days task. The aim of the day was to coppice Hazel from a select few areas of the Carmyle New Park. Coppicing the Hazel periodically helps to encourage more growth in the area. We started off trying to find Hazel that was structurally ductile but still relatively straight.
The Volunteers in the dense jungle of Carmyle New Park.
The Volunteers in the dense jungle of Carmyle New Park.
The Volunteers in the dense jungle of Carmyle New Park.
After we had selected the best Hazel to cut down we lopped off the limbs for nice long strands.
Delimbing the branches for the best results. If you look closely you can see the rain
Delimbing the branches for the best results
The Hazel is being collected for a Turf seat that one of our green gym leaders is going to create for a project. The seat will be built around a tree with two rows of hazel weaved in between stakes then filled with soil and topped of with turf. There is also room around the tree to plant wildflowers as the picture below illustrates.
The turf seat as explained above. Foxglove wildflower planted around tree.
After we collected a few bundles of Hazel we decided to give the guys a short day – the volunteers worked really hard and seemed to enjoy themselves but the weather was being persistent, so after lunch we decided this would be a good morale boost. After we wrapped up the Hazel and packed it into the van we headed to the drop of the volunteers and thank them for their hard work.
Hazel collected by several groups of volunteers.