I estimate 70-80 % of our small wood is overrun with invasive Laurel. A big disappointment. The leaves and brash are poisonous - full of cyanide apparently so deer won't browse the young invasive trees which helps them to get established. Because the trees are evergreen they then create a desert of shadow, killing the natural understory. We have one long edge on the Eastern (morning sun) side of the wood which has held out against the invader. Running North to South along a path is a big carpet of bluebells along with dozens of primroses. On the Southern edge of the wood a carpet of what we think is Vinca. Vinca is also a garden import and my only hope is that it won't out compete the primroses and bluebells.
Because the Laurel brash is poisonous I don't believe it can be chipped and used as compost or a mulch. I have read as much as I can and the technique for removal seems to be to fell as close to the ground as possible. You then have the choice of either piling up the brash in "rafts" after removing the trunks/poles for logs or burning in large quantities. There is the option to apply glysophayte to the stumps of the Laurel. I am not going to do that at first - I hopefully have time on my side. A little often.
Its suprising how quickly you can clear a small area just using a hand saw, pruning saw, loppers and secateurs. I also bought some weird lopper/pruning saw contraption on a 10 foot pole - but thats redundant for this task which is really about taking the stuff out at ground level. Its immensely satisfying walking into an area which is shaded - finding an ash of sycamore tree buried behind a wall of laurel - and then wantonly setting about hacking and felling to reveal the English woodland that should be there !
I think I have spent about four sessions of 2-3 hours so far. You get into a rhythm, work up a sweat, lose yourself in the job - its very "mindful". I am also starting to have a day-dream about sawing and dragging out logs for several months until "Conan" like I emerge from my physical exertions 4 stone thiner and rippling with muscle ? If I could lose a couple of pounds just sawing logs my body would thank me.
I have to say that I am not happy about the organization of my woodshed. Firstly someone helping the last owner decided it was a good idea to log a huge amount of wood and then just stack it in the open to rot - literally. I am all for beetle hotels but not made out of valuable firewood and in plain sight of the conservatory. So I need to move a good couple of tons of rotten firewood and see what I can save.
Secondly inside the quite extensive woodshed its a complete mess. I would be ashamed to show any visiting Scandinavian friend or colleague the mess that is interior of my woodshed. My wood needs to be sorted by type and age.
I found an old door and lay it on its side at one end of the shed and started a neater pile of newly cut Laurel logs, Its actually quite satisfying. The long term plan then is to season this stuff for a year or more and then burn it in our new wood burning stove which is going to be installed in the sitting room - probably in the Autumn now. The flu or chimney from that will go up through the house through the main bedroom - there is the option to get some heat from that upstairs as well. I have no idea yet about heating costs for the house. We have mains gas in the countryside so we are very lucky - the Aga is gas fired. I can envisage having the central heating turned off - the Aga running to heat hot water and the kitchen and then just the wood burner steadily munching through invasive Laurel logs. It is possible to get a decent enough wood stove so that the conservatory on the end of the house and even my study off to one side might benefit from the heat.
So I have my first little bit of self sufficiency going in a small way. Logging the Laurel should help bring back the wildflowers, bluebells, butterflies and birds. Logging the Laurel should help me lose weight (if I don't mechanize). Logging the Laurel will keep us warm through the hard Herefordshire Winters. I feel very good about that. A small bit of self sufficiency - albeit 15 minutes from a Waitrose by car.
It does feel also as if you are releasing the trees that should be there. Within a couple of days the front view of the wood started to change - just a small amount - but the trunk of an ash or sycamore emerged from what was a thicket of Laurel.
I cannot estimate how many years of work it will be by hand. The boys understand the process - and will be at the barn on home weekends and half terms etc. Over the course of one weekend my youngest Sam created a glade by felling the largest Laurel tree in the middle of the wood by hand. Immediately the light came flooding in. My prediction is that speckled wood butterflies will be chasing each other in the little clearing he has created.
So I am feeling quite Nordic about the whole thing - my old birdwatching hat - designed to keep the North Sea winds at bay on the East Anglian coast has become my tree felling outfit of choice. My beard perhaps also has found a proper career down at the woodshed.
I will post quite regularly a picture of my wood pile as I sort it out as well as the view of the wood frontage to keep a record of the restoration. If the wood is broadly a hectare (its probably more) then that is 10,000 square metres I reckon in a day I could clear with my manual method about half a badminton court worth without getting supremely bored or tired - let's call that roughly 50 square metres. At that rate the clearance would take me 200 of my not so committed man-days !
Now we start getting into the debate of how and when I obtain a chainsaw and the necessary skills to wield it. Some research required !
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