An abundant display of ash seeds in October 2008

Ash seeds generally take 18 months to germinate, so do the sums, – it’s now 18 months on. How exciting is that?

Look about you and I’m sure you’ll see those little ash seeds of October 2008 now sprouting up all over the place as perfect little ash seedlings. In their millions!

They're coming up in my wood-chipped garden paths;

They’re coming up in their thousands throughout the mowed grassy path down to the lake;

They’re pushing up through the long grass;

And of course they’re popping up all over the forest floor.  Ash seedlings, in their countless millions across the whole country, offering a future to Irish Forestry that has never been more timely.  They carry the potential of creating beautiful, uniquely Irish landscapes as well as supplying a range of timbers from superb, top of the range firewood right through to prime quality, attractive joinery timber, not to mention the lucrative hurley market that is still largely supplied to Ireland from Holland and Wales.

Ash doesn’t grow easily as a monoculture ‘crop’ but seems to lend itself to self- seeding and growing up through mixed forests in groups or patches. Many sitka spruce plantations would be ideal pioneer forests, if thinned skillfully, to bring in valuable ash trees.

Young self-sown tree heading for the light in a sitka spruce plantation.

While I was down at the Cabin woods photographing the seedlings on the woodland floor, I noticed I wasn’t the only one keeping an eye on them:

A big fat hare checking out the proliferation of ash seedlings.

Our woodlands are managed with plenty of ‘wild’ areas, so losing ash seedlings to hares is something we have learned to live with.  But with so many seedlings coming up like weeds this year, there will be plenty for everyone.

One of the hares here on the farm in winter helping itself to some nice protein rich beech buds.

Well, – that’s a slight exaggeration, – but we do have a permanent family of hares living here.  The hawk usually helps keep the numbers down in the early summer. Probably many people would shoot them. End of problem.  End of food for the hawk also. I like to see the hares and enjoy observing their antics throughout the seasons. The presence of wildlife in a forest can be challenging, but to me it enriches our lives in so many ways and I am always learning something new from them.

Hare damage to the soft bark of the fast growing lime tree happened after the tree sleeve had been removed.

This summer I set myself the target of removing all the tree sleeves from the Cabin Woods. The trees are now ten years old. I bought the tree sleeves second hand from Joe Gowran of Ashling Woodland Development, who had used them for five years before I got them.  They’re made of tough material.  One of the selling points of the tree sleeves was that they would disintegrate after ten years and I had thought they would have long given up by now, but only about 50% were being torn apart at the seam as the tree outgrew the sleeve. The other 50% were still gripping onto the tree and during this very wet summer many of them had filled up with water.

Ten year old ash tree bursting open the seam of the tough tree sleeve.

So I learned that I’d have been better to remove the tree sleeves at an earlier stage. Usually the narrower part of the young tree trunk growing out at the top of the sleeve is much thinner than at the base of the tree.  So it looks like there’s plenty of time to remove the sleeve.  But I found that as the base of the tree filled the sleeve, water filled up the sleeve and the trunk was consequently standing in water. Time to cut the sleeve off and free the tree. They were full of slugs and slime and all manner of wetland insects.  But no damage was done and after a couple of weeks of dry weather I can hardly notice the marks from tree sleeve.

This tree is a good size to remove the tree sleeve

And the other thing I would have done differently had I known, would have been to pull out the steel rods that support the sleeve after a couple of  years.  By then the tree itself could have supported the sleeve and the rod would no longer have been needed.  In most cases if I wasn’t strong enough to pull out the rod, some strong man could.  But after ten years some of the tree roots have knitted over the rod and even Hercules himself wouldn’t be able to pull them out. So those rods had to be hack sawed off at the base, having first scraped back the soil to get in as low as possible. Not much fun.

Steel rod from the tree sleeve stuck in the ground and impossible to now remove. It now has to be hack-sawed off at base.

If the tree sleeves are removed at 5 – 7 years instead of later, there might still be risk of hare damage.  But the damage will usually only be to  a few trees by then and the damage is not fatal, as you can see in the top photo of the lime tree.  We’ve also found that if branches of the trees the hares go for are pruned and left lying at the base of the tree the hares will go for the nice fresh young bark of the branch and will leave the trunk alone.  We do that here in mid-February before the ‘March Hare’ activity sets in and so far it has been very successful.

Hare damage on one of the branches we cut in February at the base of the tree we wanted to protect. It works!

My friend Rory and I doing the tourist thing at the famous Little Mermaid

I didn’t know before I went that Copenhagen is famous for its cycling. Cycle paths were planned in at a very early stage and 36% of the population cycle to work or place of education. The Danish Government are aiming for 50% by the year 2015. Think of it!  And the cycle paths aren’t just a painted line on the road.  Most of them are separated from the road by a small curbstone and the pedestrian areas also have this little curb. So even though cyclists, pedestrians and cars travel right alongside each other, there doesn’t seem to be a problem.   The car dirvers have so much respect for the cyclists.  It took me a little while to gain confidence amongst so much bicycle traffic. But before too long I was whizzing along confidently with all the thousands of other cyclists in the city.

One day we put the bikes on the train, –  very easy and commonplace, – and then we cycled out to Jaegersborg Dyrehaven, a forest park north of Copenhagen.

Jaegersborg Dyrehaven translates as The Deer Garden and there are about 2000 deer living peacefully on the 11 square kilometre estate parkland.

Here are a few of the 2000 dear at Dyrehaven grazing peacefully in the forest

This would normally be a foresters nightmare, but Dyrehaven is maintained as a natural forest park, with the emphasis on tourism  over commercial forestry.  However of course new trees need to come in so as to perpetuate the forest. Some areas had been planted and were deer fenced.

New planting beside a forest block is protected by a deer fence.

In other areas the forest block itself had been fenced, including some neighbouring grass land so that the forest could regenerate and expand naturally. I thought it was great to see examples of both being tried.

Some oak, beech and minor species regenerating naturally behind the deer fence.

Old trees are felled only if they are a danger to the public, so there is plenty of dead and dying old trees adding their unique atmosphere to the healthy forest. It was a Saturday when we were there and many people were out enjoying the peaceful, natural setting.

Children climbing and playing on upturned old tree roots

I loved to see the huge amount of dead wood standing and lying around where the big old trees had fallen.  In these ways the park took on a truly natural and quite magical character.

Here's me sitting in an area of dead and decaying beech trees. - A haven for insects and birds

I was blessed lucky having such a great tourist guide in my friend Rory, who has lived in Copenhagen for nearly twenty years.  That made all the sightseeing easy and a lot of fun. We spent some time wandering through Christiania where people have been forging out another way of life in the city centre over the last thirty years.

The lovely tranquil setting of Christiania, right in the heart of the city

It was impressive to see how nature and home made houses have been allowed the freedom to remain, right close to the centre of Copenhagen. Wandering along the unmade road beside the river I could have easily imagined I was way out in the countryside again.