Fiona’s Forest

The day I went to see this client’s land in County Cavan it was clear to see that the tree to chase after would be ash.  Fiona wants part of her small holding to be forest.  She wants to enhance the land for birds and other wildlife and she wants to grow at least some of her own fuel wood for heating her newly built house.  Mature ash is to be seen growing in the hedges and in the area generally, so we know it does well on this land. Ash is a fabulous tree for many sites in the area where I live.

Fiona with a big hedgerow ash growing in the background.

But we knew it would be foolish to plant ash directly into this heavy rushy field. It’s obviously been many years since the land had forest cover.  In mid February when I visited, the field looked washed out and tired like it had had too many late nights and not enough nourishing meals. We will need to entice in ash by planting a pioneer species first to help things along and the obvious one that comes to mind is alder.

Alder is a tough, reliable pioneer that grows fast in its early years. It will bring in insects and birds quickly and will provide the land owner with some firewood after only 7 – 9 years.

Five year old alder being pruned on my own farm in County Cavan. It's hard to believe this was a rushy field like Fiona's just five short years before this shot was taken.

Alder thrives in wet conditions; it fastens nitrogen into the soil and it deals with rushes in a few short years.  In this area, alder is a common pioneer species that comes in of its own accord once sheep/cattle/horses have been fenced out.  So if it’s good enough for Nature to plant alder first, we figured we can’t go too wrong.  Ash comes in on the heels of alder once the alder has shaded out the grass and the rushes.

Young ash sapling growing up in native alder, willow, holly woodland

Ash likes the nitrogen rich top soil that the alder provides.  If it doesn’t come in quick enough for what we want, we can do some small patches of enrichment planting of ash in a few years time, making use of the work the mighty alder has done to change the site conditions in our favour.

We ordered 1000 alder (common) and 200 ash from Van Der Wel Nurseries in Cappagh, County Wicklow.  The plants arrived by courier the following week and were planted the day after they arrived at the site by Niall Miller.  All told the job cost just over €1000. 

I love doing jobs like this.  Small, simple, straight forward. Fiona didn’t want to bother with applying for a grant for such a small job so it meant there was no delay and we could do what we wanted.  We didn’t want to drain or to mound the land.  No need to disturb the site by doing that.  The trees were notch planted in clumps.

The plants we used were good and strong and being alder they will be up above the rush in one growing season. 

Fiona showing height of newly planted alder and ash saplings in her new 'forest'

Niall Miller lives in County Leitrim, not too far from Fiona’s land. He knows the local soils.  He’s an experienced tree planter/woodland worker and did a great job getting all the trees planted in just one day.  Planting conditions were great.  It rained after the trees were planted.  There shouldn’t be any losses.  That is if Fiona keeps that electric fence well maintained and turned on to keep the horses out.  There are a few hares around the area, so we do expect some hare damage.  Niall planted in clumps rather than in rows, so this might help minimize hare damage.

In a few weeks the worst of the hare activity will be over and the trees will soon be in leaf.  I’ll paste up a few photos on the blog at the end of summer and we can see how the trees have performed. Not much to see at this stage, but we’ll follow this site’s progress as it slowly transforms from rushy field to small woodland.

Firewood - thinnings from 8 year old alder trees

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Tags: Alder, Ash, pioneer trees