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National Beanpole Week
24/04/08
National Beanpole Week
This week is National Beanpole Week. The idea is to raise awareness of the decline in coppice woodland and the benefits of coppice products.
The area of coppice in the UK has fallen since the 1950s and we need to manage these woods again. Hazel coppice provides valuable habitat for animals such as the dormouse, nightingales, warblers and many more species. Coppicing is a traditional and sustainable form of woodland management that ensures a continuous supply of useful products. Hazel beanpoles provide an attractive and effective addition to your garden.
A communal hazel coppice on an allotment can replace all the imported bamboo for free and create a lovely place for a bit of wildlife to shelter and managing it is another of those events that can bring an allotment community together. Hazel coppice traditionally had a canopy of oak so coppice is a great choice for a tree-shaded corner of an allotment.
4 comments
Do you have any links that would give me a clue how tricky/feasible this would be?
As well as doing a bit of light coppicing in the ancient hedgerow next to the plot, I've done a couple of other things:
a) planted some extra hazel trees next to the hedgerow - like you we're banned from planting trees, but I thought these would be 'hidden' by the existing hedgerow. 8 of them have been found and rooted out, but the remaining 2 have been growing strongly for 2 years now
b) planted some bamboo on my own plot - we're allowed shrubs, but not trees...
You're quite the guerrilla gardener - viva la revolution! I'll post a bit some day on the hedge I planted on the allotment a few years back.
What bamboo did you plant? I had thought to do the same but the non-invasive bamboos seemed to be rather slow to establish - and were very expensive - like £20! I'd thought of something like Phyllostachys nigra.