Feeling Chipper!

The Christmas tree recycling was in full swing on my first attendance of 2024. Matt had been busy collecting from the surrounding area, with a total due in excess of 65.

I helped Amy prepare and feed the trees through the wood chipper, which also provided us with good mulching material for the park.

In between deliveries, we managed a spot of litter picking, mulched some of the trees in the picnic area and checked for signs of any storm damage (Storm Henk).

Photo believed to be False Puffball Slime Mold, taken during litter picking.

My next visit involved coppicing (mainly hazel) by the lodge/picnic area car park. 

Using loppers and a hand saw, we cut the stems down to a few inches above ground level. This will help them produce more shoots in the next growth. We also cut back some of the encroaching grass and weeds along the edges and used the leaf blower to remove the entangled leaves (seen below).

The cuttings were taken to the woodchip bay and fed through the chipper.

More chipping followed in the afternoon; this time it was in the west woods. The city college volunteers had recently helped to cut down an area of elm trees and arranged them into piles of branches and logs. We chipped them where they lay, as it was not effective to collect and transport the wood chip back to the bay. The thickest logs, which would not go through the chipper were taken to the lodge compound for other possible usage.

It was more of the same the following week, albeit much colder with some light snow flurries. After a bit of thinning out in one of the shrub beds, we managed to mulch a few more of the young 'caged' trees around the park.

Nice shot of a rainbow, just before the sleet & snow flurries.

In the afternoon, it was back to the west woods. Another area had been cleared of elm, and further piles of branches and logs were fed through the chipper (the photo below shows the resultant heaps of woodchip).

It was certainly a month for chipping. The City College volunteers had helped to coppice a section of willow on the edge of the east woods. After a large litter pick, we made our way to the area to collect the neatly piled branches so that they could be moved to the woodchip bay. We added a trailer to the jeep to accommodate the long lengths and, after three full loads, soon managed to increase the woodchip pile again.

Thankfully, the woods survived further batterings from storm Isha & Jocelyn, and it was great to see carpets of snowdrops heralding the early spring.

I'll be back in a few weeks time with more reports and photos. Hope you can join me.