[ScribbleUk]

Hi,

Can anyone recommend a book or links in relation to woodland planting diagrams/plans?  Keen to start on our planting but haven't found much in the way of suggestions of possible layouts to accommodate different trees, seasons, wildlife, land, etc.  Most seem to be related to planting with a view to efficient mechanised harvesting, or a bit of landscape gardening which doesn't scale well.

Thanks. 

[clydesdaleclopper]

Maybe try some of the permaculture books about forest gardening. Although they are about edible forests there is lots of information about spacing etc depending on canopy size etc.

[Carey boy]

Hi, what about the woodland trust for help.

www.woodlandtrust.org.uk

[stufe35]

We planted an acre of wood about 4 years ago, with help of woodland trust.  They advised us to plant randomly in groups of about 7 trees of each species....(single trees wood be smothered by stronger spicies.)
In practice we started with the species we had fewest of and planted the groups at opposite ends of the field. Then went to the next spices, picked up 7 ish plants wandered of and planted them and so on.
I seem to remember spacing was approx 2.5 m....but you can work this out by dividing the number of trees you have by the area you are planting.

Our trees were wrapped in sets of 25,  so that gave you 3 groups, an 8 an 8 and a 7 worked quite nicely.

It's not rocket science, most of our wood was planted on Xmas eve !  We followed on with stakes and tree guards over the next few days after Xmas day of course.  Whether you risk leaving them unprotected for a few days depends on what wildlife you have around, you may want to guard as you go along.

It's a very rewarding experience, and we love walking through our wood in the evening doing a bit of maintenance.

Oh yes we bought some wild flower seed and sew the area too, it was expensive but lovely to see the colours now a few years later.

How much are you planting out of interest ?

My wife has just reminded me we put the stakes in as we went along so you could see the area we had planted, as we soon realised you couldn't see where the plants were otherwise !

Ours was a grass field which we ploughed and rotovated first.

[spandit]

Unwrap all the bundles of whips you receive and mix them up. Just grab at random when you plant - it's what I did aside from places where I only wanted one species

[ScribbleUk]

Thanks for replies.  So far we have planted some alder which will grow to be a wind break around veg/polytunnel site.  Then a mixture of willows in the wetter ground, then moving into birch as the ground gets a bit drier.  Also put in a load of firs near the chickens. 

Still have a loads left over so will need to find a home for them.  :-)

[ScribbleUk]

Any pics- would be nice to see how it is progressing.

We planted an acre of wood about 4 years ago, with help of woodland trust.  They advised us to plant randomly in groups of about 7 trees of each species....(single trees wood be smothered by stronger spicies.)
In practice we started with the species we had fewest of and planted the groups at opposite ends of the field. Then went to the next spices, picked up 7 ish plants wandered of and planted them and so on.
I seem to remember spacing was approx 2.5 m....but you can work this out by dividing the number of trees you have by the area you are planting.

Our trees were wrapped in sets of 25,  so that gave you 3 groups, an 8 an 8 and a 7 worked quite nicely.

It's not rocket science, most of our wood was planted on Xmas eve !  We followed on with stakes and tree guards over the next few days after Xmas day of course.  Whether you risk leaving them unprotected for a few days depends on what wildlife you have around, you may want to guard as you go along.

It's a very rewarding experience, and we love walking through our wood in the evening doing a bit of maintenance.

Oh yes we bought some wild flower seed and sew the area too, it was expensive but lovely to see the colours now a few years later.

How much are you planting out of interest ?

My wife has just reminded me we put the stakes in as we went along so you could see the area we had planted, as we soon realised you couldn't see where the plants were otherwise !

Ours was a grass field which we ploughed and rotovated first.

[stufe35]

Ive realised I don't have any recent photos so will get some at the weekend.  The planting photos are too large to upload so I will work out how to shrink them.